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Can you share your background and how you started?
I graduated from journalism… but I had a long time passion about fashion and styling photography. I’ve been doing all these things like fashion show since high school… I was like a show producer for my runway, styling and casting… I don’t know how I did it. I think it’s the love of fashion.
[To move to the U.S.] I actually sold all my things… handbags from saving up money… and bought a plane ticket. I think I had a thousand dollars pocket money and flew to the States… I didn’t really have a plan.
[When I came here] I paid for school for English as a Second Language for six months. Then I started to work in a restaurant…My English was not good at all… I think fast but it doesn’t catch up in English…It was really slow. It was a lot. [Then the] time was up for six months… I felt like, “no way I’m going back to Thailand, I’m not done here.”
We would always drive to New York for the weekend. I first went to New York when I moved to D.C. When I went for the first time, I thought, “this is the dream.”
I kept working, and somehow, I made a Thai friend in New York. He studied and worked in fashion…he helped me move.
I had to move without even having any apartment. I looked on Craigslist for a roommate and apartment.
I started working [in a sushi restaurant] and enrolled in night classes at FIT and went once a week. It was for fashion design. It wasn’t glamorous. It was for people who worked to learn how to design their own clothing and sew clothing.
What was the reason for founding the brand?
That year, when I met my then-partner, now husband (and still partner), he noticed I love handbags - I always looked at the handbags. It was the era of the very first “it” bags that I think came during that time: Chloe, and then Balenciaga… I always looked around. Since I worked in a restaurant, [I saw] all the designers, the models, hip hop artists come to the restaurant.
It was, like, my food for eyes, food for [my] brain, you know? I really enjoyed observing.
And Jesse (husband, co-founder, creative director, and CEO of BOYY) said, “you know, if you love [bags] so much, why don't we start to make a design for one?” And then that's when I dropped out. I didn't feel like going to the night class and sewing a dress was giving me anything. So I stopped. And I started to designing a bag.
[So] We bought leather in the Garment District, found a pattern maker, and then we started designing together.
[And] in 2015 we launched the buckle. That design changed our brand… it changed our lives.
Any career advice for the readers who seek to become a successful designer like you?
You really have to love it. Because even me, sometimes I feel suffering.
It’s much more work than what you see from the facade…We work all night, we talk about it all night, seven days a week, nonstop.
Having a brand is like having your baby. You’re really taking care of every aspect. It’s not that glamorous.
[But] if you can come up with that amazing product, I believe that people will see you.
