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“It’s very important that I see that sparkle in her eye.”
Luly Yang wants anyone wearing her clothes to light up--
To feel the flame kindled in her more than 20 years ago.
“I literally felt the fire kind of ignite and I said, okay, I have to. I want to feel that.”
Fashion is the fire in her belly –
It also requires ice in the veins.
Especially when you hear you’re torching your future.
Luly He said don’t do it. Hahahahahahaha. He said, don’t do it. He’s like, you’re making a mistake. Don’t do it.
But she did.
She’s become *the designer in Seattle –
Everything from custom bridal gowns to mass produced uniforms
But being the hottest fashion name doesn’t prevent you from getting burned.
“Our sales pretty much overnight dropped by half.”
Now she talks about getting blindsided by disaster
*And also making mistakes with eyes wide open
Luly We tested it. It didn’t look right.
Monique So so under armpits looked like butts. It’s like. LAUGHS
SUCCESS IS MESSY. AND THIS IS WHAT IT SOUNDS LIKE.
I’M MONIQUE MING LAVEN.
AND THIS IS A PODCAST ABOUT REALLY SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE –
AND THEIR MISTAKES, SETBACKS, SCREWUPS –
BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT MAKES YOU SMARTER AND STRONGER.
YOU HAVE TO KEEP TAKING YOUR BEST SHOT – AGAIN AND AGAIN --
AND IT’S GOING TO BE “HIT AND MISS”
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I moved to Seattle almost 20 years ago—
And I remember being so struck by two beautiful – very Seattle-- images.
The first, the skyline and mountains – taken in as I approached the city on the viaduct.
The second – also combined nature and human-made beauty.
It was in a window on Fourth Avenue, in the Fairmount.
It looked like a huge butterfly had wrapped itself around a mannequin.
This dress was so beautiful – and buoyant - and seemed just on the edge of taking flight.
And it was the perfect metaphor for the designer herself…Luly Yang.
Her signature piece –
It launched her in the fashion world – while flannel and hoodies were the norm.
Now, decades later, her designs are everywhere--
Stitching together form and function:
Breathtakingly beautiful bridal gowns—
To well-designed workwear for Amazon … or Alaska Airlines .. or Canlis restaurant.
Along the way -- a lot of hard lessons.
But first, to that monarch butterfly dress –
She wasn’t even in fashion when she made it in ____.
Back then, she was a graphic designer.
An organization that provides art therapy for children — was having a fundraiser:
A contest to design dresses made of paper.
And, that was her metamorphosis.
Butterfly wings
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Luly So to me, it was kind of the metamorphosis and the catalyst for me to kind of get the experience, fall in love with it, realize, oh my gosh, I remember when I was six, I wanted to be a fashion designer. Okay, let me go back to it. So, that’s when I made the transition.
Monique So when you entered this contest, did you consciously think, okay, I’m taking my step back into fashion?
Luly No.
Monique Okay.
Luly I just said I want to be in the show and join the community and raising money. That was it. And then a few months later, after I made two paper dresses, one of which was the butterfly dress, I, I actually have this like, I don’t know, it’s a fire that I felt when I put the dress on a on my friend who was an architect. She put it on and she walked away and came back to me and 1 09 31 I really felt this rush. To me, it’s this passion that 1 09 33 it’s really I literally felt the fire kind of ignite and I said, okay, I have to. I want to feel that. I want to feel this in my job, in my everyday job. And I really I, I took out my journal, I wrote a pros and cons list. And then I think the following month I told my boss at the time, it’s like I said, okay, I’m thinking of doing fashion so I don’t have I work part time because I needed to make a living too. Yeah, well, I did that and he said, sure. What great support. Yeah, from my colleagues and time management. And they were wonderful.
Monique How about from dad?
Luly He said don’t do it. Hahahahahahaha. He said, don’t do it. He’s like, you’re making a mistake. Don’t do it. Don’t do. That’s a big change. Don’t do it because you have a stable job at an amazing company. Stay there. And I said, well, I do love my people and I do love the company. But he couldn’t feel the fire that I felt because I was just internal.
IT’D BE EASY TO JUST LEAN ON THAT BUTTERFLY METAPHOR –
BREAKING OUT OF THE COCOON SPUN BY HER FATHER-
AND TAKING FLIGHT.
BUT, IT WAS NOT THAT SIMPLE…
FOR THIS OBEDIENT DAUGHTER OF A LEFT-BRAINED ENGINEER.
Monique Take me back to little young Luli. You say you were you were born in Taiwan, is that correct? Yes. And you move to this area when you were ten?
Luly Yes.
Monique Do you remember? I do. What was that like?
Luly Big shock. Very different. Yeah. I actually lived for my first when I was one and two. I lived in Japan. Oh, I don’t remember much of that, but the photos bring back memories. But. So then eight years in Taiwan, South Taiwan, and then Bellevue.
Monique So a little bit of a culture shock.
Luly I didn’t speak a word of English, so, I had to kind of integrate immediately into the elementary schools here. And, that was a that was a big change. And it wasn’t it was a it was a neutral change. It wasn’t I wasn’t scared, I wasn’t concerned, I just thought, okay, this is life we’re supposed to, you know, at a young age, we’re supposed to go through this change. Let’s learn.
Monique Yeah.
Luly And that that was the beginning. So learning language and the culture was, very rewarding, but difficult at the time because I was young.
Monique Did your parents speak English? Yes. How did they how did they help you learn the language or.
Luly They hired me. Tutors. And study, you know, study. It was hard. Culturally, it was like very normal to come home, have dinner and then do homework until 11. Oh, and, history class was very difficult because it’s all about reading, so my dictionary on the side and, my history book there, and it would took like take like 2 or 3 hours to read a chapter.
Monique Just to read it, let.
Luly Alone understand it, just just to read it and then understand it so that the first few years were homework time was not my favorite. It was long. Yeah, that’s really long.
Monique It’s, culture shock. You said.
Luly I think the school was very. The school felt very different. And going to school and Asia was all unit. We wore uniform is very uniformity was very important. And the students didn’t speak as much. The teacher spoke. We just listened. Yeah. And it was it was, it was much more open and free here. It felt like, but I really enjoyed it. I enjoy seeing my friends
Luly I remember going to my first class that was in fifth grade, and I sat down and I, I looked around and I thought, wow, there are like 4 or 5 different hair colors in here.
Monique That struck you?
Luly Yeah. Last year in my class, we had black hair.
Look at this blond hair, brown hair, you know, and I was already very interested in art. And so color was a big element for me to study. So as I was studying my classmates hair, and then I would look at the blond girls here and say, like, how does she have 3 or 4 shades of blond in her hair?
Wow. So these are things that I didn’t think I would be like looking at.
In fifth grade.
Monique So when you didn’t have a uniform anymore, did you find yourself a did that direct you towards fashion or.
Luly Yes. Yes. Well, uniform was kind of a statement in its own too, because it was about the school and the brand of the school and the messaging. My mom was into fashion. So was my grandmother. They all sewed and designed. And it was interesting because I said, mom, why is my skirt a little different? It’s pleated and it doesn’t look like everyone else. So she said, well, because I made yours custom and I spaced your pleats a little wider than the regular pleats, so the proportions are different on your skirt. And the suspenders on line were wider. So she actually styled my uniform.
That’s a very subtle way that looked different than everyone else. So you’re uniform, but you’re special. I said, oh, okay.
She’s like you got to wear a uniform. But I’m just going to make it just a little special.
So you have your individuality, you know.
Monique When you were growing up and you’re artistic and noticing color and all of these things and being interested in that, was there a part of your Asian-American background? That’s a that’s great, but you need to have a plan. You need to have a career.
Luly Yes, definitely. I well, when I wanted to go to design school fashion, I actually wanted to go to fashion.
Monique Oh, right.
Luly Away. Right away out of high school. And, my father, he’s like, I don’t think that’s a very commercial type of career to go into. I think you should do something else. You can stay in the creative field, but you should go get a more viable, like, sellable, you know, degree. And I said, well, what is it? He said, well, how about graphic design? Everybody needs a graphic designer.
I’m a good daughter. I said, okay, I will skip my, you know, skip the fashion. It’s still creative as long as the title has design in it. I’m happy. Okay, so I went to University of Washington and I went through that program, I loved it, I learned so much about visual communication.
SHE APPLIED THOSE SKILLS TO HER GRAPHIC DESIGN JOB AT AN INTERNATIONAL ARCHITECTURE FIRM—
THAT’S WHERE SHE WAS WORKING WHEN SHE DESIGNED THE MONARCH BUTTERFLY DRESS… AND, YES, SHE SPREAD HER WINGS. SLOWLY.
TOOK YEARS FOR THE TITLE TO CHANGE FROM GRAPHIC DESIGN TO FASHION DESIGN.
Monique So what was your plan? It was a gradual transition. Correct?
Luly It was gradual. It was great. I found a space that was inexpensive. I took a loan out of my small condo, and then I remodeled it. It’s down just two blocks away on fourth and Pike building. Okay. I was in an upstairs, no window, studio 800 or 900ft².
Monique And what was your what was your goal?
Luly I wanted to build a couture salon because I wanted to design something custom for each client. Wow. I want to do something custom. And it was the highest of all fashions. This. But couture. Yeah. So I started with that. So it was bridal and couture.
IT WAS A DARING SEATTLE SUCCESS.
IN THE HOME OF GRUNGE.
LULY YANG BECAME THE DESIGNER FOR ANYONE WITH THE MOXIE AND THE MEANS FOR HIGH FASHION..
SHE CREATED A BODY OF WORK FOR THE BODIES WHO KNEW HOW TO WORK IT.
Monique How do you see that in a bride? How do you know? Oh, I got it.
Luly Oh, the way she looks at herself, it’s not the way she, you know, it looks at the dress. It’s the way she looks at herself in the mirror. And that’s why you see, mirrors everywhere in my studio. It’s very important that I see that sparkle in her eye, that she feels like she’s in her skin, and she’s feel super confident. And this is.
Monique It. She sees herself, and she likes what she sees.
Luly She likes what she. She likes what she feels, and she likes what sees. I love the beauty of it and the whole, the special, the special ambiance that we create. Right. And that feeling for the bride in this. And I do it for that one individual. But there’s also this, idea of the human, comfort and, this effortless feel. Couture can be pretty stuffy, like, if you don’t do it right, it can be uncomfortable. So the comfort and the textiles that we select today is not what I was selecting, you know, years and years ago. Now I’m putting pockets into the gowns everywhere I can and putting comfort into I’m putting pieces onto the gown that transforms so that after the ceremony, it can be transformed into something that’s much more flexible. And it moves with the bride as the night evolves.
FROM FEATHERS TO BEADS – TRADITIONAL TO AVANTE GARDE—
THE DETAIL ON LULY YANG’S GOWNS MAKE BRIDES’ DREAMS COME TRUE.
BUT SHE QUICKLY FOUND – SHE COULD NOT BE MARRIED TO PERFECTION.
JUST LIKE HER DESIGNS, HER *BUSINESS HAD TO BE ELASTIC, PRACTICAL .. IT HAD TO EVOLVE.
Monique So you started off basically, building your dream, your passion. Yes. And that got tempered by the economic realities?
Luly Yes. It was hard. It was hard to run the business, be the designer, be a one person show and try to do everything. Well, and being trained as a designer, we’re trained to be perfectionists. At least in my school. You need to be, you know, your your solution needs to be perfect. Perfection. 100% to the point you know. To the point. How perfect can this product be before it’s launched? And that slows things down.
Because if you let one side of the brain take over and the other one’s not thinking, you just kind of a runaway show. Yeah, right. And then mistakes happen. And financially, cashflow wise, it’s not healthy. But if you let the books just run the show, if you let just the, you know, the left brain run the show, you’re thinking only about financials and cash flow. The product is not solved for the solution, for the product or whatever. It just we’re doing, you know, here. Why why are we doing all this? I’m here to solve human problems. I want to be as a designer, I want to I want to elevate the human experience through my work
THE TWO SIDES OF HER BRAIN CAME TOGETHER FOR AN EVOLUTION THAT WASN’T IMMEDIATELY OBVIOUS.
‘LULY YANG COUTURE’ ESTABLISHED A REPUTATION FOR CUSTOMIZED ELEGANCE, REFINEMENT, AND BEAUTY—
AND IN 2016, ‘LULY YANG DESIGN GROUP’ SPECIALIZED IN UNIFORMS -- TO FIT THE MASSES
SHE STARTED WITH CUSTOM BEADING, SILKS, AND DELICATE DETAILS—
THEN ADDED SAFETY WEAR – WEATHER-PROOF GEAR – AND WORK UNIFORMS.
THE COMMON THREAD?
FORM COMPLENTING FUNCTION
Monique How does that approach for the dresses then influence the uniforms also?
Luly I think the attention to detail and the attention to silhouette building and building, a look and the design lines that look good on more body types is coming from the art of couture. The art of couture is how do you make this particular person, this body, look as beautiful, as proportionate as possible? And we take that and then put that kind of formula into uniforms. Whereas the uniform you’re dressing 20 to 30 different shapes and sizes and that that’s, that’s very challenging and super challenging and but, but it’s so good when you get it right. It’s so good.
Monique That must have, you must have had some hits and misses with the uniform side of things. Yes, yes.
Luly We do these prototypes. Because we can test out our innovation. And the innovation can be a total, flop. Or it can be really, a good one.
Monique Tell me about a flop.
Luly Oh, well, we put, we try to put a gusset that we. Put, you know, that you see on the bottom of like on the bottom of the, like workout.
Monique Pants, okay.
Luly Like leggings and things like right here SHE’S POINTING TO HER UNDERARM
and it and look like we’re looking at it like a bottom of a pant. When you raise your arm. You really don’t. Want that look.
Obviously it didn’t go to market.
Luly We didn’t do it. We tested it. It didn’t look right.
Monique So so under armpits looked like butts. It’s like. LAUGHS
Luly You know, so this is all kind of an R&D process, right? Anybody who’s in design of products knows that, you know, there’s a lot of laughter. a lot of oooh – i can’t look at that.
HER SUCCESS IS NO JOKE –
AMAZON TOPS HER CLIENT LIST – ALONG WITH ALASKA AIRLINES, THE SPACE NEEDLE, CLIMATE PLEDGE ARENA, AND OTHERS.
SHE FOCUSES ON HOW THE BODY WORKS –
HOW TO DESIGN CLOTHES TO MAKE JOBS EASIER.
BUT ALONG THE WAY, MORE OMINOUS MISTAKES CAME WITHOUT ANY TINGE OF HUMOR.
Luly: oh gosh, i cringe when i think about it but ok really? yeah.
THAT WAR BETWEEN HER LEFT AND RIGHT BRAIN – HAS LEFT SCARS SHE DOESN’T ENJOY LOOKING AT--
BUT SHE WAS WILLING TO CONFRONT THE CRINGE
Luly one of the toughest times and I think I’m not alone in saying this is 2008. Because I started in 2000, one, two and 2008 was unexpected.
Monique The recession.
Luly The recession and the recession. So we were when we moved to the Fairmont in 2004, we doubled our sales year over year.
Monique Year over year. Wow.
Luly So I think I got a little comfortable. And as a designer was very, very happy, obviously, that the work was celebrated and we were doubling our business share a year and 2007, I hired a lot of people and the designer in me, Wow, look at what we can do.
And I think the designer in me took over and just said let’s let’s really augment and grow and hire and do all these investments and new things. And so I went ahead and did all that in 2007. So we had the biggest staff that we ever had back then and they expanded more space.
Monique And how many people did you have?
Luly my gosh. I like, I think like 12 or 13 for us, for a space that usually requires like 3 or 4 because we’re a small boutique at the Fairmont that excludes the sewing room. But it was it was just a time of growth. And it was I was seeing the trajectory kind of going this way. And then 2008 happened MIRROR So imagine that happening. And I have all the infrastructure built for another double, right? Right. So that was a big shock. And that’s why it’s cringey because I think about it was like, wow, that was a tough year.
Monique Yeah. How did you get through that?
Luly I, I, well, it was really hard because I had to let people go. And that was my that’s my least favorite thing to do as a business owner is having to say goodbye to people I care about. So I had to let go of half.
Monique Wow.
Luly Yeah. And I had to stop paying myself. That’s not easy.
Monique For how long?
Luly Like a year. Wow. So that year was tough, but we hung in there.
So my take away from that and luckily that was a long time ago when I think about in 2008 to now is being agile and not don’t don’t forget to prepare for the future and don’t overbuild. And now today the business woman’s voice is much louder and much more prominent with the design voice being much more balanced. And I still I mean, I’m not perfect. I’m still learning.
BUT JUST LIKE THAT SCHOOL GIRL WHO DEVOTED HOURS TO TRANSLATING HER HISTORY HOMEWORK—
SHE MADE SURE THOSE HARD LESSONS – STUCK.
YEARS LATER, IT WOULD SAVE HER.
WHEN COVID BROUGHT THE WORLD TO A HALT--
TALK OF HIGH FASHION WAS OFF PITCH.
AND THE BUSINESS WOMAN’S VOICE TOOK OVER.
Luly Immediately I was trying to source first of all, I was doing thinking about our business at the time. I was like, my gosh, people are dying, right? We can’t get masks, especially medical masks.
So we were trying to, with our logistics reach and our sources, we were trying to source medical masks to bring them in. So we were. Trying to ship it in to donate to the hospitals. And we were doing that very, very quickly. Meanwhile, I’m thinking, what can I do here locally? So I, with our sewing room, started to design mask and make masks locally with our fabrics that we had on hand. Okay. So we started to do handmade masks and sent it out and share that with the community. But it just wasn’t enough. It was very little. We don’t have the capacity to create thousands and thousands, right? So I said, we have to be quick. We can’t wait on this. We have to move on it. So I actually pivoted and converted some of our factory partners sewing lines that we used to make uniforms and garments into mask making lines. And that was done immediately, pretty much in March and April.
Monique So immediate like that.
Luly Immediately we had to pivot. I said, okay, what did I learn from my past? I can’t stay on track. I have to pivot and I have to take a detour. I’m going to put a pause on this part of the business. I’m going to turn this way. Nobody expected it. And we pivoted all of our factories into mask making, and within two months we were producing 2 million a week. And while we’re delivering, we deliver millions of the masks that year. So so we were really not doing we were doing garments and uniforms for Amazon at the time still because they were so busy delivering the essentials, right?
Monique Yeah.
Luly So they were there too. They really saved a lot of people from having to go out and risk their lives by getting infected. So they actually delivered and I made masks for them. Wow. I made masks for them and for schools and for different communities that had to go out and do things. And so that was rewarding year, but super tough.
Monique You were helping your community, but it also became it saved your business or.
Luly Did it save my business? It saved thousands of jobs overseas in the factories where a lot of factories were closing down. And it made me feel good because, you know, those families that have worked in the production lines for years and years where their families continue to live the way that they were able to live. And today they still make our uniforms, you know, and our garments. And so we went through when you go through such a hill together, such a big mountain, we climb a big mountain together, we become very close.
Monique Wow. So did you have to lay anybody off during the pandemic?
Luly I didn’t. I didn’t.
THE BUSINESS WOMAN AND DESIGNER SAW THE SAME PATTERN:
JUST LIKE HER CLOTHES - HER COMPANY HAD TO ADJUST TO MOVEMENT..
AND CHANGES--NOT RESTRICT THEM.
THAT FLEXIBILITY SAVED HER BUSINESS –
EVEN GREW IT MORE.
SHE STARTED LULEISURE – A LINE OF MORE CASUAL AND COMFORTABLE CLOTHES.
Luly And so we’ve learned to really be a flexible team and we all try to think the same way and we have to remind each other, I need to remind myself to be, don’t forget the art, don’t forget the beauty of it. Don’t forget that perfection part of me, that why people hire me to do this and hire our team to do this. But also keep in mind that it’s a business. It’s has to be sustainable. It cannot be wasteful. Use your resources wisely. So that’s the balance that I’ve learned that I’m practicing. It’s like yoga and tai chi, you know, You don’t just know it and then you you know it and you do it. You have to practice every day.
AND YOU FIND THAT EVEN PRACTICE DOES NOT MEAN PERFECT.
SOMETIMES ONLY MISTAKES DO.
Monique Did you ever start designing something and you didn’t intend to?
Luly I mean, small ones happen all the time. So when I’m draping. So I start with the sketch. Usually when I’m designing and it looks a certain way. Then I take the fabric, and then if it’s a draping piece, I’ll drape it and it’ll be. And they’ll. I’ll say, I give myself 30 minutes. I’m going to do this. So I do it. And sometimes it’s very bad.
I’m like, my God.
Take it down, Cringe. And then sometimes it evolves into something that’s that I didn’t expect. That’s really beautiful. Because of the limitation of the time, because of limitation of the fabric. And I won’t fold it certain way. Yeah. And it forces me to move a different direction. With the design. Okay. So I think. I think those kind of, like, mistakes and those surprises are actually good. Yeah. And I’ve learned to kind of give myself a little bit of leeway and flexibility to allow that to happen.
Monique Is there is there one design that comes to mind when you’re talking about that?
Luly Let’s see. Well, I have one from 2000. Gosh, that’s all. 2008. That was the crazy year. And when things were and my favorite collection, one of my favorites, came out that year.
Monique Which one was it?
Luly It’s called 2020. And it’s not the year 2020 was about vision. About vision 2020. Having 20, 20 vision about life. And my finale dress was hand draped, and it was a black and white one. It has a parachute. Skirt is really big and it has such beautiful movement. So that was not supposed to look like that. Okay. But it turned out to be one of my favorite pieces.
Monique Do you remember what it what you had originally envisioned it to look like?
Luly It didn’t have the parachute skirt. It didn’t have the volume that it had. Didn’t have the movement that I’d have. It was a little more structured. Okay. And so it ended up being a structure, a corset with a balloon skirt that was really, really it took over like a ten foot wide runway.
Monique Wow.
Luly And and we bubble the bottom. So when she took off, it would look like she was kind of flying. So that’s magical.
AFTER MORE THAN TWO DECADES, STILL TAKING FLIGHT.
SHE FIRST TOOK THE RISK ON THAT MONARCH BUTTERFLY—
A LITTLE SCARED OF THE MISFORTUNE AND MISTAKES THAT MIGHT WEIGH HER DOWN.
INSTEAD
THEY’VE GIVEN WING TO EVEN GREATER SUCCESS.
Luly My favorite mistakes as a group that help me, I think, be a better designer and business person today would be the, realization that when I take my eye off of the real problem, which is solving for the humankind, when I take my eye off of that and I focus too much on the logical side or the practical side, or just the design vision side, and my eye is just on that and not the human elevating the human experience, then it usually has a chance of going off track. Okay, but what I learned from all my mistakes is like redirect, always redirect back to the human being that we’re designing for, and it’s usually comes back to success. So I can redirect the mistake back to success or back to something that I’m proud to say that is mine.
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Thank you so much for listening to this episode.
We’re almost finished with this first season of Hit and Miss.
Just one more episode to go.
Photography and editing by Jeff Ritter
Art Direction from Ryan Barber
Invaluable feedback from Julie Berg, Kyla Grace, and James Sido
You can find me, Monique Ming Laven on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. All the links are on kiro7.com/HitandMiss.
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