By Laura Medina
Looking back on her life, her past work, life experiences, and the lessons she learned, Sue Wong thinks it is an honor to be profiled in the 3-D documentary, "Fashion And Culture In Los Angeles" where her recent "Spring Transcendent" 2013 Collection" runway show at L.A. Live was filmed as the highlight of the 3-D documentary by Catherine Bauknight, Director/ Producer and Associate Producer, LeeAnn Vasquez.
Being one of the subject matters profiled in this documentary gives Ms. Wong the time to reflect on her life, the ups and downs, and the life lessons gained along her journey. This made her realize, now is the time to allow people and her fans, who she was and she is and to give back by offering aspiring designers and fans the lessons she learned from her journey as a 6 years-old immigrant to a very successful and influential fashion designer she is today...
Looking Back and Who She is Now...
"I’ve been in business for 28 years. I’ve been a designer for many, many decades.
I’m a veteran. I’m a survivor. I’m very, very good at what I do. I’m a pro. I’m a seasoned pro."
"I’m not some neophyte just starting out here in the game. I’ve been doing this for a very long time."
"I’m well-respected in my profession. I’m respected for my craft, for the quality of the design work that I do; the artistry of the work that I do. There’s a lot of personality in the works of my clothes."
"There are a lot of thought processes in my clothes. They’re not three seams and a zipper.
"They’re not out there for overt commercialism. There is a lot of soulfulness in what I do."
Her Life Story…
"I exemplify a lot of things to a lot of different people. I am good role model for a lot of creative people who aspire to be in this industry."
"But beyond that, my whole life story and the trajectory of where the journey has taken me, I also think it is also a very inspiring story. Because, it is a story that really comes from riches to rag, or rather back to rags then back to riches again. So, I had my falls, so to speak. I had my ups and downs. You know, scaled to the top of the pinnacle then to plunge back to the abyss in the valley twice in my life."
From escaping Communist China at age 6 and a half to ironing laundry at her family laundering business in Los Angeles to...
"I become an over-whelming huge success at the age of 25. I was probably making the equivalent of 3 Million dollars every year because I made this company from nothing to huge, mega-corporation. You know, bring in half a billion dollars in today’s dollars in a three years period. My boss treated me very well."
"By the time I was 30, I lost everything."
"You know, I had four homes. I had 2 homes at the tip of Point Dume. You know, 3 acres at the tip of Point Dume in Malibu. I had my house in the Hollywood Hills. I had my ocean front property in Hawaii. I was flying first class in the Concorde everywhere. You know, I was wearing designer clothes. I was living the All-American Dream by the time I was 25."
"By the time I was 30, I lost it all. I was bankrupt. I lost it all through a devastating divorce. Whatever is left over, I put everything that I had into the first Sue Wong, not ever having run a business before. I fell victim to con artists who really took my money and drain everything that I have in a year. So, basically I had nothing."
"My two kids were babies. They were 1 ½ and 2 ½ and I had nothing. I had no job. I had no future. I had no money. I had no homes left and I had to start all over again in life. In my youthful arrogance, I thought I can get it back in two seconds."
"It took me twenty years to climb back."
Sue Wong on How She Built a Business...
"When I started my own business, I couldn’t really afford a huge staff and I did everything. I was the chief cook and bottle washer, too. I would design and staff. Because I did everything, sometimes I only have three days to pull a collection together. That was when I was making my first samples, here, in-house. I would stay up all-night, you know, when I put my kids to sleep in the shipping department, on cardboard boxes. "
"This is true, ok…not exaggerating,.. then I would stay up all night making up the samples. Next morning, the show would start then I really have to be present to receive the customers. So, I would design, make the sample, run to the market to really get the orders then come back and calculate all the orders and do the productions-by myself- you know…dying the zippers, dying the trim and getting the right thread, talking to the piece goods."
"My nerves were frayed. Then, sending them out for cutting, before that, you send it out for grading and marking, sending them out for cutting, sending them out to contractors…You know, all these various components gathered is enough to drive you crazy. Sometimes, when the garments come back, it would break your heart because the quality wouldn’t be right. So, you have to scrap together $75,000 that you can ill-afford, can’t afford to sacrifice to start all-over again. My mother would come in and inspected every garment then you would really pick my own orders. Then, Francisco my custodian, help me pack everything then ship it through UPS."
"That was the way for a very long time."
"People don’t know my sweat, blood, and tears."
"They really don’t what it took to build this company."
"People come up to me, all the time, because they see what I have today and say, “Sue, you are so lucky.” And, you know what I say to them? I stare them in the eye and say, “Luck has nothing to do with it. That took a lot of hard work and endless toil and commitment and responsibility and sacrifice to my art in order to get where I am.”
"So, this did not come easy. It was hard won."
On Being a Fashion Stalwart...
"I can tell you this, after all these years in the business, I am the the Last of the Mohicans. In the terms of LA designers, my generation, surviving…I am still standing. I am still at my craft. Better than ever, in top form, at the top of my game. Also came from years and years of refining my practice, years and years of refining my art, to a point that I can came in for a few hours and accomplish what takes a typical LA designer three weeks to complete. "
Sue on being a Survivor...
"Of course, I do. Of course, I do. I lived quite the…what you call it… I lived quite the eventual life."
"You know, I came from nothing. I’ve basically made something out of myself."
"I’m basically an immigrant to this country."
"My mother escaped the Communists when I was five years old. She basically traded her wedding jewelry to the border guard to, basically, let us to freedom then I came to this country when I was 6 ½ years old. My parents, the typical immigrants’ tale."
"I grew up in my parents’ home. They had a Chinese hand laundry, dry cleaning business; and I pressed shirts and helped out in the laundry until twelve midnight, every single night. So, I know the value of hard work."
"Basically, people who come from abundance, from wealthy families, are spoiled. They don’t know what it means to have sacrifice or commitment or responsibility. I try to really instill that in my staff; and they have no clue in some cases. They have no clue to what it really takes to make it. All the years of sacrifice. All the years of scarcity. All the years of struggle. I’ve been through it all. "
What it takes to be a designer...
"To be a really good visionary, you have to have a psychic eye because everything is pulled from the either. I’m an artist. Artists are really tapped into the esoteric energy. I see the garment in the mind’s eye, long before it is formed. I have dreams. I dream what color stitch, the color beads…everything what it should be."
"You have to be a good visionary."
"If you really want to become a good artist, you to be awake in that department. To be a good purveyor of civilization, which I am as a designer, you can’t be myopic and really be a fashion designer, I have to aware of everything that goes in contemporary civilization. Whether it be music or food or architecture or art or literature, anything that really drives civilization. One thing, I am not au courant, is politics because politics real bore me because they are plays of egos by really insecure men…and I find that incredibly boring."
What People will Learn from Watching the Documentary...
"They will see things do not fall into place happenstance. There is no such thing as an accident. There is no such thing as luck. You make your own luck. We all create our own destiny. "
"I have a huge trio of art in my Malibu house and the title of them is: “Think. Act. Become.”
"We become our own destiny, not only of what you put forth into action but also in your thoughts."
"Everything begins on the mental plane, you put energy to thought. People don’t understand thoughts are living things. They live in another realm where you give it enough energy, it manifest in this realm. That becomes action. Your actions become your destiny. So, it’s all Think, Act, Become."
"So, by being a really good example for other people, that I tell it like it is. I’ve always tell it like it is. I really don’t high gloss the story."
On Handling Success...
"I know what it took for me to make it and anybody who thinks they can do it in an easy way -no. If they think so and become it, they not be prepared for it. Then, they will be in store for a great, big burn-out because they will not be able to handle their success. That’s the truth. You know, look all around you in Hollywood, those young stars, the Lindsay Lohans of this planet…you know, it’s too much, too soon. They’re not equipped with the wisdom or the personal fortitude to handle it, just don’t have it within them. So glad I had success early in life then a burn-out early in life…so glad it happen to me at that age as I was turning 30 because I feel like I am more much better equipped to handle success on a big scale level."
On Success, the Second Time Around...
"Hopefully with a lot more wisdom. Not to be associated with any creepy men. Nobody needs them in life. No decent women needs that debacle around her neck. We’re better off without them if that is the case."
"I live alone right now. I’m dating. I’m having fun right now. I have no one special in my life right now. Not lonely. Not needy. Not desperate."
On Outfitting the "Twilight" Cast for Movie Premieres...
"I enjoyed that very much. My clothes speak very much to the romance in those vampire movies. A realm where a mortal and a spirit is a very romantic concept. I much rather prefer Dracula as a romantic figure. It’s about immortal love."
Her good friend wrote the screenplay “Bram Stroker” as a romantic movie.
"All my clothes are about light and darkness anyway. The prevailing theme in my collection is “Devil or Angel.” “Good Girl vs. Bad Girl.” The Dark vs. the Light. Light vs. Shadow. It is really a consistent theme in human nature. I see light is defined by shadow. Like you see a piece of architecture, when you see it in full-on light, it’s not particularly interesting. Once you have some shadow casted, the shadows defined the form. The darkness, the unconsciousness of human nature, that is what is done to the light."
"As shadowy figures in our unconsciousness struggle to find that light. That’s the whole purpose of being human and having this journey here."
On Being in Other Movies and Projects...
"I have other projects in the work which I am not at liberty to say. Expect a lot of exciting things to come up."
