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.

Jason Wu

Categorized in : Art Race Growing Up

Designers have always shown outlandish and exuberant clothes, but that hasnt always translated to the streets.

streets clothes designer

Being feminine in the way you dress doesn't have to compromise who you are as a woman or your career.

careers dresses way

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

pastries paris romance

I think it's really important to make things your own in your voice. I started when I was 23, and in the beginning of my career, there was this expectation of a young designer being edgier, cooler, more downtown. But I was never that person.

voice careers thinking

This is the hardest thing I've ever done, being in fashion business, because that's what it is at the end of the day, a business, and you have to make sure it works.

the-end-of-the-day fashion done

I think a beautiful dress on the wrong woman could mean nothing. It has to be the right woman and the right clothes. That's why you need that personal touch. I mean, that's why I went into this business to begin with.

beautiful mean thinking

I realized the importance of archiving. So I save key pieces from my collections, as well as any red-carpet things that become iconic. I always ask for that stuff back. I'm like, "It's going in my archives."

archives pieces keys

I love a little bit of glamour and I love tall girls. by Jason Wu

I love a little bit of glamour and I love tall girls.

glamour girl littles

The polishedness and the sophistication were what I was interested in. I mean, give me a polka dot, a floral print, a pleated dress, a big fur coat, that was always my language, and it wasn't very "in" when I was starting out, so I had a difficult time in the beginning.

dresses giving mean

What I was interested in wasn't popular and young, but I never really deviated from doing it. I just decided that I was going to go full force into exactly what I wanted. I think there's a certain comfort that comes with age and experience, and when I got that, I think my work got better.

age comfort thinking

The worst thing is to be a designer and create work that isn't honest. You have to be honest. Otherwise, you'll always be a reaction to what other people do and you'll always be one step behind.

honest steps people

As a designer you have to just do whatever you want to do. The second I came to terms with that, it transformed my work.

designer term want

Anyone who knows me knows that I don't know anything about politics. Every time I go to Washington, I feel like I'm in Legally Blonde.

know-me blonde feels

In designing for the first lady, I tried to sort of be in her shoes, but I didn't really look at her as an important political figure. I looked at her as a woman who would like to wear a beautiful dress to an important gala.

shoes design beautiful

I guess I accidentally became a part of history. Honestly, when you're young and you're a designer, you have a goal, but that is not the kind of goal that you even think it's possible to achieve.

kind goal thinking

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.

archives one-day keys

You're always in the mode of creating the next season. It's so fast, and in two months, the collection you just did is already old, and it's always next, next, next.

creating next two

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.

dad home jobs

In American culture you leave home at 18. In the Asian culture, your parents don't really want you to leave home. So my parents just thought I was going to be one of those kids. I was like, "I'm never going to make a living at whatever I do." I just liked pretty things.

parent home kids

I had a hard time in middle school. I was never really quite me until I was 16 or 17, and things like bullying didn't matter anymore.

bullying hard-times school