This story appears in the October 23, 2017 issue of Forbes Asia. Subscribe to Forbes Asia
BY CHEN MAY YEE
In the midtown Manhattan studio of Malaysian designer Zang Toi, a room with a crystal chandelier, white orchids and evening gowns that start at $13,000, is a small black-and-white photograph in a silver frame.
It is of a young Toi and his brother leaning out an upstairs window, wooden shutters flung open, holding strings of firecrackers above a grocery store. Toi's parents owned the store in the village of Kuala Kerai, in the interior of peninsular Malaysia. Toi, the youngest of seven, grew up stocking shelves, ringing up the register, anything to help out. "That's the reason I've always had the spirit of entrepreneurship," he says. "I love to sell."
Selling brooms, onions and soy sauce may seem a far cry from selling high fashion, but Toi wears his contradictions well. After all, he is a 56-year-old Asian man whose signature outfit is a mini-kilt. He works in a famously liberal industry but counts himself as a supporter of Donald Trump.
Toi burst on the scene back in 1990, when his orange, hot pink and purple jackets and skirts--inspired by the colors of Malay flowers and cakes--landed him in a Vogue article on the new faces of the decade. Since then, his roster of clients has included Sharon Stone, Elizabeth Taylor, Melinda Gates, Kirstie Alley, Patti LaBelle and Ivana Trump, as well as members of the Saudi royal family and a Hearst or two.
After almost 30 years in the business, he's not done. Last month, during New York Fashion Week, he opened the first stand-alone Zang Toi boutique, an 800-square-foot storefront on Lexington Avenue near 75th Street.
Previously, Toi relied on high-end department stores to sell his creations. But department stores are struggling, and while his trunk shows for Saks Fifth Avenue remain a major income generator, he no longer sells at Neiman Marcus or Nordstrom. He also has side businesses: There's a Zang Toi cafe in Kuala Lumpur, and he now designs Zang Toi-branded greeting cards for Papyrus, the North American stationery chain. He says his business is "small but very profitable," with revenue of between $5 million and $7 million
a year.
Toi's career in fashion was shaped by the women in his family. His mother was of a generation that wore the Chinese cheongsam every day. "Mom was not a shopper," he says. She shopped once a year, before the Lunar New Year, and bought enough fabric each time to have 20 to 25 cheongsams tailored. Toi, whose full name is Toi See Zang, used to tag along and help her pick out the fabrics.
The family saved enough to send two of Toi's brothers to university in the U.K. But when his turn came, his father said he could afford to send him only to Canada. Toi flew to Toronto to complete the equivalent of high school, and mulled studying interior design. His sister, reminding him that he had a flair for clothes, suggested fashion school instead.
Toi remembers buying his first copy of Vogue magazine and dutifully completing an entrance-application assignment to create a collage of tear-outs. He was accepted at both Parsons and the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. His father said he had enough money to cover tuition but little else. Toi arrived at Parsons with $300 and soon began working part-time as an assistant for a knitwear designer in SoHo to pay for rent, food and art supplies.
After he graduated in 1984, he continued to work for the designer, Mary Jane Marcasiano, for several years before starting his own label. He had been in business all of two months when he was spotted by an editor at Vogue. "I was," he says, "at the right place at the right time."
One of Toi's brothers, See Luon, who runs the Toi-branded cafe and a Malaysian offshoot of the brand, Toi the Dressmaker, says their parents encouraged them to follow their dreams. Today, the family includes a chemist, an accountant, a tennis coach and an actuary.
Toi's mother, elegant at 89, still wears cheongsams, only now they're all by Zang Toi. He recently made her a navy silk shantung cheongsam for a grandson's wedding in Malaysia.
Toi's clients tend to be effusive about him as a designer as well as a friend. Singer Patti LaBelle, who's been wearing Zang Toi for more than 15 years, says she met Toi at a party thrown by a New York socialite friend. Her first Zang Toi outfit was a short purple dress, with flowers embroidered on the skirt, and a purple mink shawl, which she wore to a Foundation for AIDS Research event. Three years ago, performing at the White House's "Women of Soul" show before President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, she wore a dramatic green, hand-beaded Zang Toi cape over black silk pants and a blouse. She recalls the president complimenting her on the outfit. Toi sends her flowers every year on her birthday, says LaBelle, adding: "He's like my brother. He's precious."
Carol Alt, the model and actress, met Toi at a party last year and has since been dressed by Zang Toi for red carpet events and bought eight or nine pieces--a dress, jacket, pants, a gray suit, a coat--for herself. "I've worn ?everybody," she says, reeling off names--Versace, Armani, ?Ferragamo, Valentino, Zac Posen, Nicole Miller, Vivienne Tam, Marc Jacobs, Ralph Lauren. Of Zang she says: "The way he cuts things, it's just so perfect for my body. He just has a way of making things that show off your best attributes."
What's more, "he is the most lovely, most sweet, most unpretentious, easiest person to get along with," she says. "That's why women keep coming back."
Ivana Trump, The Donald's first wife, says, "I am a regular client and keep coming back because Zang Toi takes great pride in making sure that his clients look and feel great in his many designs, including bustier dresses, suits, pantsuits, cashmere sweaters."
If his mother's uniform is the cheongsam, Toi's is a mini-version of the Scottish kilt. His first kilt was made by Kinloch Anderson, kilt maker to Britain's Prince Charles. Toi flew to Edinburgh to be measured and told them to make the length just 13 inches, because "I am short."
He liked wearing it so much he soon started making his own and began wearing them everywhere, including to the Council of Fashion Designers of America Awards, where he was photographed by the legendary New York Times street photographer Bill Cunningham. "Everywhere you go," he says, "you mark your
arrival."
On a summer afternoon at his studio, he wore a short black kilt with a discreet "T" embroidered in black sequins across the crotch, the logo for House of Toi. Above was a white shirt and fitted black jacket. Below, tanned legs ending in black ankle socks and alligator-skin wingtip shoes. A bobby pin decorated with a single crystal kept his black hair out of his eyes.
He showed a visitor his latest collection, which has a royal blue theme. There were fitted daytime jackets, lined in silk, for $10,000, to go with $3,000 pants. A thin cashmere-and-silk V-neck sweater with a built-in shirt collar was $3,800. Evening gowns started at $13,000, and the priciest item was a $38,000 silk-lined coat hand-embroidered with Swarovski crystals.
He says his new Lexington Avenue boutique offers both special-order and ready-to-wear pieces, including some in the $1,800 to $2,300 range, "so more people can afford Zang Toi."
His operation is lean--his entire team consists of 17 people, including tailors, seamstresses, cutters, two assistants and an office manager--and is spread across 3,000 square feet on the 20th floor of a Manhattan high-rise. It's a point of pride for him that he's always handled his own publicity.
These days, he considers himself an "elder statesman" in the industry. He's pleased to see the emergence of prominent young Asian designers in America, from the Thai-born Thakoon Panichgul to Taiwan-born Jason Wu, who has dressed Michelle Obama.
While he--and those who came after him--crossed oceans to make it in New York, he thinks the power centers of fashion are shifting and spreading across the globe. For example, he sees China, once regarded as only a low-cost manufacturing base, riding on its long history, rich culture and new wealth to become a fashion capital. It may take 10, 15 or 20 years, he says, but it will happen.
Toi, who holds a U.S. green card, isn't a citizen and can't vote, but says he wrote a check to Trump's campaign. "I'm a supporter. I think he's good for business. I travel all around the country. I'm friends with the working class. I hear their worry. A lot of them just want a full-time job, education for their kids. I wasn't surprised when Donald won." Toi says his business has picked up since Trump was elected: "Women are shopping again."
