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Korean fashion designer Yuna Yang portraying business tycoon Elon Musk's mother Maye as Inspiring

Korean fashion designer Yuna Yang praised business tycoon Elon Musk's mother, Maye, portraying her as an inspiring woman and highly-successful model.

In her recently published autobiography, "Fearless: World-Class Korean Fashion Designer's Way to Succeed," Yang described Maye Musk as "a strong woman who chose to migrate all the way to Canada from South Africa for her three children's education."

 

Mentioning her brief work experience with Maye Musk during the 2016 Met Gala, the Korean fashion designer lauded the model for her work ethic. Yang said Musk chose to live a life as a model, instead of as a mother of the billionaire son, saying she was amazed by her way life and professionalism.

In "Fearless," Yang shares her impression of some of her models and celebrity clients. Maye Musk is one of the celebrities Yang has fond memories of.

The designer said Musk is also a strong woman.

Noting she was a single mom who successfully raised her three children, Yang said the celebrity once juggled five jobs to send her children to school. "Surprisingly, she managed to squeeze her academic career into her already extremely busy schedule and earned two masters' degrees. I was inspired by her strength as a mother and woman with a career," Yang said.

Born Yang Jung-yoon in Seoul in 1978, she debuted as a designer in 2010 at the New York Fashion Week. Her debut collection received positive responses from fashion experts. In a collection review article, one American journalist described Yang as "a sure winner" of the 2010 New York Fashion Week.

Despite her successful debut, Yang's decade-long career as a designer has been far from being smooth. As an Asian with limited English, she was a stranger in the New York fashion industry. Facing racism and discrimination, however, she didn't give up.

"Knock, and the door will be opened." This biblical phrase seems to best capture her life as a fashion designer.

As its title suggests, her book is "self-promotional." It focuses a lot on her personal journey in the fashion industry since her accidental, "eye-opening experience" in fashion in Italy two decades ago when she was learning Italian on a student visa, and what she learned from her successful career while interacting with her clients and business partners in Europe and the United States.

The author invites readers to explore her mindset and how she achieved a breakthrough after overcoming myriad challenges since launching her label, YUNA YANG, in New York's swanky fashion district.

She said she's an effective problem solver and hates avoiding tough situations or playing the blame game.

Introducing her experience with an Italian sales director who was initially unwilling to sell his company's limited, much-coveted fabric to the Asian designer, she said she confronted him when he lied to her about their fabric, which she figured out while listening to his conversation in the Italian language with other Italian. She said she directly told him she understood what he said in his conversation with other Italian and convinced him to sell his company's fabric to her, a request that was accepted.

Yang describes the fashion industry as a battlefield, because so many designers launch their labels, but only a very small number of them manage to survive while the vast majority end up closing down their businesses.

"Once certain labels were launched, designers are advised with almost the same pieces of advice. They compete with each other while taking the path that their predecessors took," her book reads. "I think fashion is not something where designers compete to take a certain position. Designers are supposed to be creative and pull off their products based on their own ideas… We are living in an era where the paradigm shift is underway from the scale of economy to a value economy. Individuals' creativity has become even more important than before."

Yang identifies her label as a niche high-end designer brand.

She said her target clients are ones who are tired of the same old styles that existing luxury labels offer and are looking for new creative ones.

Recalling her encounters with several clients from Europe, she said one of the questions she often heard from them is if there's anything new. "One of the clients told me that she felt bad because she met a woman who had the same bag as her. People like her always look for fashion or accessories that are different from those of other luxury brands or things that others don't have," she said. "I was confident that I could create a whole new category in fashion which didn't exist before. It may take time to pull off such a label, but I was sure that I could do that."

She released the book ahead of her new fashion project in Seoul.

Source: https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/culture/2021/06/142_309755.html

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