Courtesy of Margie Tsai
Margie Tsai, left, takes her bow on stage at the showing
of her spring collection last month.
Isles fashionable
By Nadine Kam
in Big Apple
Features EditorSure, Donna Karan, Anna Sui and John Bartlett got most of the press during the presentation of New York's spring collections, but amid the urban chic, there was also a touch of Hawaiiana on the catwalk, thanks to Margie Tsai.
She showed white tank tops and shorts with Hawaiian-print patch pockets and trim, and tops with diagonal chevron inserts of luau prints. Tsai's models wore customized rubber slippers trimmed with silk flowers and crystal from show sponsor Swarovski to match different outfits, and models wore silk flowers in their hair and at their wrists.
"I haven't taken a vacation in so long," said the Taiwan-born designer, who moved to Hawaii at age 11. "I thought, if I can't go home, then I can try to visualize it through my work."
When the show was over, Tsai drew calls from Women's Wear Daily, Details magazine and a handful of Japanese fashion publications. Her past collections have also found their way into WWD, as well as Japan's World Journal, New York magazine and Time Out New York.
This was the ninth collection for Tsai, who headed to New York two years after graduating from Radford High School in 1987.
Courtesy of Margie Tsai
Margie Tsai's line includes pieces inset with
Hawaiian-print fabrics.
She had been enrolled in the University of Hawaii's fine art program, but decided two years into her major that fine art was a subject "I really wanted to pursue on my own time, and discover without feeling obligated to do on demand."I wanted to include art in something more utilitarian and thought fashion is the best way to interpret art."
Her artistic streak shows up in her custom-designed fabrics, such as blocks of wool applique in vivid red and yellow over sea-green silk netting in a series of dresses for spring. And there was a series of loose-fitting white cotton dresses embellished with crisscross patterns of wispy black yarn. Pieces from her collections generally cost between $70 and $210.
Tsai enrolled at Parson's School of Design and after graduating she went to work as a design assistant for Donna Karan, and later, Vivienne Tam. After working for other people for three years, Tsai went on a soul-searching trip to Europe and Asia, trying to decide whether to strike off on her own.
"I felt like I had to be true to myself," she said. "If failed I could always go back to working for other people, but I needed to do this because you only live once, you're only young once."
Back in New York, she created a small collection of eight pieces for the resort holiday season. Sharing a booth at a trade show with a friend, she got a big break when Barney's ordered pieces from the entire collection. "And they wanted more," Tsai said.
"The hardest part was putting the money together to go into production, while meeting the retailers' requirements. This was an aspect of the business I didn't have to learn when I was working for other people."
She got some help from her parents, who gave her a loan with a three-year deadline to make it, or not.
"I don't think I've let them down," Tsai said. Her successes enabled her to open a boutique on Prince Street just last year in the trendy, rapidly growing area known as Nolita (North of Little Italy).
But the fashion business is still a learning process for the young designer, and while she said she believes her direction is on the mark, her experiments with fabric don't always work out.
Last year, she created garments that included crushed rose petals sandwiched between layers of fabric and mesh.
"When I got an order from Nordstrom for 100 pieces, I realized I had to make 800 yards of fabric. I can only make three yards at a time, and it was not a process I could entrust to anybody else. Making three yards for the sample was OK. Making 800 yards was not fun.
"But that's the kind of thing I have to watch for, and learning different quotas when I'm importing fabric from other countries like Germany, Austria and Italy.
Tsai can often be found at her shop at 4B Prince St., which doubles as her work space. But lately she's been feeling homesick and may be visiting Hawaii for Christmas.
When a former local girl refers to rubbah slippahs as flip flops, it's clear she's been away too long.
