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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 couldn't live if I wasn't a designer.

I never like to think that I design for a particular person. I design for the woman I wanted to be, the woman I used to be, and - to some degree - the woman I'm still a little piece of.

Being a rather second-rate actress, I finally thought, 'I'd rather be a designer.' I knew I could make things look good.

And so when I moved to IBM, I moved because I thought I could apply technology. I didn't actually have to do my engineer - I was an electrical engineer, but I could apply it. And that was when I changed. And when I got there, though, I have to say, at the time, I really never felt there was a constraint about being a woman. I really did not.

I came, I studied architecture in America, so my technical background's completely western. But my seventeen years, the formative years of one's life, and I can't say that the Chineseness in me is not there.

Design is about point of view, and there should be some sort of woman or lifestyle or attitude in one's head as a designer.

I wanted to be involved with fashion, though I didn't know what being a designer meant.

I think it was hard for people to cast me as an ethnic, as an Asian American woman.

Design is about point of view, and there should be some sort of woman or lifestyle or attitude in one's head as a designer. So my being able to reach the masses was something that meant a great deal to me - especially for women who could never wear Vera Wang.