TOUGH COOKIE

In pursuit of her own fashion label, fun, exuberant and quirky streetwear designer Ki ie Yiyi inspires us with her indomitable spirit and determination to succeed

When did you discover your passion for fashion design?

I’ve known it since I was six. After watching a runway show on TV, I thought to myself that I wanted to be a catwalk model when I grow up. So I started designing and making my own princess-style dresses, using my room’s curtains and hand-sewing them onto my Barbie dolls. My grandma’s house had a sewing machine and I was happily playing with it. It was only when I grew up that I realised that I was not tall enough to make the cut for modelling. But the model in me never left and just comes out naturally in photoshoots (laughs).

After high school, I went straight for a fashion design course at Raffles Design and, upon graduation, worked two years for a local designer. Meanwhile, I also started a blog, and my colleague and I would go to work all dressed up and take photos. After the company closed down, people who visited my blog started to call me up and ask me to do styling for magazines. I did that for a year only to realise that my passion remained in fashion design, so I started my own brand and launched it in the following KL Fashion Week.

Were you already well versed in business?

Prior to starting my own brand, I never thought of it as a business. I thought I was just pursuing my dream, so I came up with a collection without any business plan.

Thinking back now, I believe it was silly of me to do that. Right after launching my label, problems started popping up and I was at a lost ‒ I didn’t know where to go for production, or how to sustain it.

What did you do then?

I explored every avenue I could find, but everytime I tried something, I hit a wall.

But that was also when I started to gain my experience. The past three years have been such a struggle, so much so that I had to think twice about eating a piece of roti canai. In the mean time, I carried on with blogging and styling to keep myself afloat.

What did you learn about the business side of fashion?

I read a book on the business behind fashion and the first sentence itself tells you that in the apparel business, 10% belongs to creativity and 90% belongs to business. That was when I started looking for investors. Everyone tells me that for an apparel business, you need at least five years before you could see any return. Officially, I’ve been in business for three years now, so I still have to wait for another two more years and hopefully then I get to see some money coming in.

In the face of adversity, where do you find the courage to press ahead?

Growing up, I took many classes ‒ piano, Japanese, taekwando, etc, none of which lasted long until I discovered fashion design and, subsequently, my passion. At the same time, though, it made me regret giving up those other lessons. Had I continued, I would have become a much more multitalented and versatile person. As they say, you never know what you can do till you try. Since then, I’ve made it a point to stay committed to my goals and see them through. A lot of my friends have asked me to stop my business because they see my struggles, but I’m stubborn. I don’t wish to stop because what if I did only to find out that I was almost there?

Another reason I’m not stopping is that I don’t come from a rich family, so in order for me to study fashion design, dad had to borrow money from other people, after using up all his hard-earned savings. I won’t let him down.

And how is your label doing now?

Currently, I’m introducing the fancier readyto-wear stuff to China. In Malaysia, I’m targeting the more commercial crowd, with a more affordable street-wear range, namely the “B” series, retailed at the multi-label store Fabspy in Mid Valley Megamall, as well as online.

How big is your team now and what kind of boss would you say you are?

There are three of us. I project my bubbly side on social media, but, in the office, I think I’m very serious, very focused, which, I believe, has caused stress among my staff. I think I need to find a balance. Having said that, I’m not one who takes it out on her staff. Often I keep things inside myself. I’ve learnt to let it go when they make a mistake by thinking back to the mistakes I, myself, have made, and instead encourage them. After all, you learn best from your own mistakes, right? AM