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.

I am an Asian designer. I was born in Taiwan. That is who I am. But I am a designer, like any designer of any race. Growing up in the '80s in Taiwan, the arts were not considered a career.

I think clothing is transformative. When you put something really beautiful on, you feel something. In so many ways, were always playing a form of dress-up - its just a grown-up, much chicer version of it. Its nice to be able to be whoever you want to be.

When I was 12 or 13 I already knew that I was gay. And then my interests were not conventional. So I was very different, in every sense of the word. And in an all-boys school, that's tough.

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.

I hope I am the antithesis of disposable fashion.

The way my mom dressed was one of my earliest inspirations, in those '80s suits with shoulder pads and things like that. For years, I ran away from that style. But now, all I want to do is shoulder pads and nipped-in waists and padded hips and peplums and poufed dresses.