When I was growing up, you sort of did the unthinkable. You did something that has never really been replicated.

I didn't understand anything about fashion until I moved to Canada when I was 9. That's when I learned English and was exposed to fashion magazines like Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue.

I woke up one day and I was like, "I don't have anything to save for myself for the future." That's when I started archiving things. I take four or five things that are really key to each collection, and I restore them or, in some cases, remake parts of them, and archive them.

I love the romance of Paris. I love Angelina [tearoom and pastry shop]. I always get a Mont-blanc [pastry] there.

For a while, I just thought that I wanted to be an illustrator because that's all I wanted to do. I also did some sculpting. It was always very artsy and very feminine, everything that I did.

My parents loved me, and I think they realized that I was probably not going to have a normal 9-to-5 job. For the longest time, my dad thought that I was just going to be home until I was, like, 35, which, weirdly, is completely normal in Asian families.

The idea of transformation is super-important to me. You can see it in the way I approach things. I have never been a clean-faced, freshly scrubbed hair person. I'm the New York designer who doesn't do that. I think about the hair and makeup almost as much as I think about the clothes because it all has to work.