Vivienne Tam Is Experimenting With a New Bespoke Offering and Business Model, as Her Eponymous Line Hits 30
This story was updated Feb. 28, 6 p.m. EST.
On the eve of Paris Fashion Week, where Vivienne Tam will put on a catwalk show celebrating her eponymous brand’s three decades in business, her enthusiasm is undimmed.
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“Time flies, I can’t believe it’s my 30th anniversary, that’s so crazy,” the New York-based designer told WWD. “It’s like a dream where suddenly, 30 years have gone by, but I have enjoyed every moment of it.”
With this year marking the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relationships between China and France, the moment felt ideal for Tam to make her mark here. After all, Paris has been central to her life, given its position between New York and Hong Kong, the two hemispheres of her creative universe.
“I thought what a cool, great combination that was,” she said. “And Paris is the place I fell in love because when I was living in New York and going back to Hong Kong, I’d meet my boyfriend in Paris. It’s the city where I found out about love and romance.”
Still today, she’s eager to meander around the city, rooting around secondhand stores and antique shops, taking in museums and galleries during long walks. “I mean, there are all these areas full of excitement and joy everywhere — and then there’s the little cafés,” she enthused. “Everything’s so romantic and beautiful, it’s got so much inspiration.”
On her March 2 runway, she’ll therefore be putting forth the idea of that love and peace stem from the synergy of two different elements coming together. She’ll be mixing Chinese characters and French words, adding a splash of chinoiserie — think dragons and phoenixes — and embracing both cultures.
“There was [Yves] Saint Laurent going to China and Vivienne Tam going to Paris,” she joked.
And she’ll be taking her three decades of design on the road, with stops in New York, Hong Kong and Shanghai that will include a retrospective element.
Plus, she’s eyeing global expansion for the business, which is around the $30 million mark and counts some 20 points of sale worldwide.
“The last three years have been very hard but it’s getting better now,” she said of the pandemic. Just before its onset, she had more than 40 points of sale, including 14 in continental China after selling the brand’s Chinese operations to Shenzhen-based clothing company Ellassay in 2017 for 37 million renminbi, or $4.46 million; another 16 in Japan via another partnership; six in Hong Kong and two stores each in the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.
But growing back step-by-step, including buying back China operations in 2023, suits Tam just fine. “Making big numbers can be dangerous. So many have gone out of business that way that we’re taking baby steps,” she said.
While she’s not yet ready to open a new flagship — her New York one shuttered early in the pandemic — she’s here to meet department stores in particular. “European businesses are quite different from American and Chinese,” she said. “There’s a uniqueness to it.”
After all, to her, “it’s about the enjoyment and meeting with the people and coming out with the product, one that people love,” she said. “I want to make clothes that bring people joy and happiness.”
Now she’s looking at increasing that “Double Happiness” — her long-standing tagline — for her clients through a bespoke and customization offering.
“Before, it was buyers coming in, now we have so many individual customers who are coming to see the collection and I have so many requests — besides celebrities,” Tam said of this new-to-her business model.
Options can range from changing a design’s color to tweaks in the texture, shape or even prints. “More and more customers want that level of service,” she said. It will be based out of her New York studio for now and she is also looking at partnering with the Mandarin Oriental, which inducted the designer into its “Fans” ambassador program.
For Tam, pursuing the unique is coming back full circle. She grew up watching her mother make the family’s clothes, particularly for Lunar New Year celebrations.
“We didn’t have much money so we would get scrap materials and make patchworked dresses,” she recalled. “My mother would say how they were the most beautiful because there was only one in the world.”
It sparked a lifelong love of making, particularly clothes, although Tam didn’t necessarily have a career in fashion in mind at the time.
Having grown up in Hong Kong, the Guangzhou-born designer felt like that intersection of East and West had become an integral part of her early on. A visit to China cemented her desire to express the arts, crafts and techniques she saw there in her medium of preference: clothes.
After graduating from Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Tam headed to New York. “It was hard to find a designer job,” she recalled, describing that profiles in the then-manufacturing hub tended to favor merchandisers rather than creatives bringing their own ideas to the table.
But though she felt that the way forward was for “everything [she] was doing to have a part of Chinese-ness,” the local market was not convinced. “Everybody told me [I’d] never be successful,” she recalled.
“So I took my little duffle bag with 22 pieces of design and left for New York, [which] I loved and felt was the place for me,” she said. “At that moment, I just wanted to be who I am.”
Launching her first brand in 1982 under the moniker “East Wind Code,” Tam persevered. But the turning point came in 1994 when she made the line eponymous and staged a show at Bryant Park.
“When I was a student, I went to Paris and would always fight to get into shows but it felt very remote to be doing one,” she said. “But then the first time I walked out on the runway, that moment of joy was like ‘wow, I did it.’”
Among her absolute bestsellers are her printed mesh designs. “I keep doing it because I found that fabric so contemporary,” she said. “You don’t have to worry about sizing so much, it can fold so easily, doesn’t wrinkle so it’s great for traveling, you can work by day and party by night in it.”
And it turned out great for her embroideries too, although factories were initially reluctant to take the stretchy mesh on, she added. “It was a fun way to explore the materials and … it became quite signature for me.”
Having Julia Roberts at her Bhutan-inspired show is also a moment that stands out in Tam’s mind. “That period of the ‘90s and that New York feeling were so exciting,” she said. “And then she came wearing the same top [as me] and I could not believe it.”
Her “China Chic” book, published in 2000, but also having three of her pieces, including the equally iconic and controversial jacket outfit featuring portraits of Mao Zedong in the Metropolitan Museum of Art were also highlights. So was being presented with the International Designer of the Year award in 2017 for promoting Chinese culture around the world at Mercedes-Benz China Fashion Week and opening Shanghai Fashion Week in 2019.
Over the years, the likes of Roberts, Michelle Yeoh, Serena Williams, Gong Li, Lady Gaga and U.S. First Lady Jill Biden have worn Tam’s designs, but the designer never takes attention and commercial success for granted.
“Every year, every collection is about learning,” she said. Also undimmed is Tam’s fascination with technology, which she was among the first to embrace, dressing laptops and later, mobile payment terminals in her dreamy motifs of butterflies and peonies.
“The ‘Digital Clutch’ [from HP in 2008] was really the beginning of fashion-meets-technology,” she recalled. “I always love to try something new, experience something new.”
Most recently, she’s embraced the metaverse. In February 2023, she put forth a show that happened concurrently in the real and virtual worlds during New York Fashion Week, showcasing her fall 2023 collection alongside NFTs.
“It’s really during COVID[-19] that I learned a lot about the virtual world and Web3,” she said. “This new creative space is really exciting for me.”
As far as she’s concerned, that’s the latest in the continuous life lesson that her career to date has been. “It’s a journey of making it happen,” said Tam. “How to keep yourself going — and growing.”
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