Work and Business
Young Designer Heads for Success
For Tiffany Gong, wearing a pair of her own homemade headphone covers changed her luck — and her life.
Gong, 23, works for the designer Anna Sui. She was at a fashion industry trade show last year, showing Sui’s designs to potential buyers, when her life took a dramatic turn. “I happened to be wearing a set of headphone covers that I had made,” Gong said. “Everyone at the show started asking about them, and a woman who worked at the Anna Sui store said that if I could produce them at certain prices, she’d sell them in the store. I said, ‘I’ve never done anything like that, but I can try!’”
Gong did not waste any time. With a small investment on her part of a couple of hundred dollars, she was up and running. She found a stay-at-home mom who was willing to crochet the covers, while Gong went to work with the designs, adding iPod cozies to the line. “I pretty much pulled it all together in two weeks,” she said.
Once the samples were made, Gong went to stores after work to show her line, named With Love and Laughter. The covers and cozies feature charming designs, such as a bunny, a skull and bones, or a ladybug.
“Three stores said yes, which is enough because I do sew in the Velcro myself, and it’s time-consuming. So supply and demand met exactly,” Gong said. The time she spends on her designs each week varies. “When I first started, I spent about 30 to 40 hours during nights and weekends,” Gong said. The designs — about $33 for headphone covers and $35 for the iPod cozies — now are sold at Shop on 105 Stanton St. and at Anna Sui on 113 Greene St. They can also be purchased online at www.girlshop.com and at www.with-love-and-laughter.com.
The line has sold out twice at Anna Sui and at Shop, and Gong is surprised as well as delighted. A career in the fashion industry wasn’t even something she had imagined until recently. “I didn’t take up an interest in clothes until I was a teenager. But both my parents are architects, so design has been very important in my life. I knew I wanted to do something creative,” she said.
Gong majored in art history and minored in film at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. After graduation in 2003, while working as an art consultant, she sent her résumé to Anna Sui. She was hired to work in the showroom in the fall of 2004, where she showed Sui’s collection to buyers. After about three months, Gong became an intern in the design department. She also does freelance work at JLo, Jennifer Lopez’s clothing and accessories line.
For Gong, work in the fashion industry has been a learning process. “I learn as I go along.” She applies that same philosophy to her designs. When she came up with the idea for headphone covers, she taught herself how to crochet. “I’m really proud of my designs since I didn’t know how to crochet at all! I learn what I need to know and just go with it,” she said.
She admits it is difficult to juggle a business, even a small one, with two jobs. “I hope that as soon as fashion week is over, I’ll have more time to continue with what I started, especially since the demand has continued,” she said.
Ultimately, Gong knows she wants to stay in the fashion world, and she’s practical about her goals. “Having done my own line, I think it’s really nice doing everything for yourself because it’s really satisfying. But I don’t know if I could do this on a mass scale because it’s so much work. I can’t imagine having to put together a fashion show,” Gong said. “I would ideally like to branch out and do something completely different every season, like tights or jewelry.”
Gong admits that it is not as difficult as it seems to break into the fashion industry. “You have to be aggressive and thick-skinned, but if you’re smart, you can go far. You have to be OK with some amount of rejection,” she said. “The whole idea when I started that I would be running to stores showing my designs seemed so out there. But it’s all within the realm of possibility. You just need to have the initiative, the time and the willpower.”
