Jia Li, Ingenious Fashion Designer, Chinese Émigré-turned-New Yorker and Favorite of O Magazine

As its unofficial slogan notes, New York really is the center of the universe, given its gravitational pull for diversity and global citizens.

Let’s take Jia Li as a case study of this fact: Jia grew up in Yunnan, a southwest province of China located next to Burma.  She was educated in Europe with a business degree, then moved to the United States twelve years ago. After working for a few fashion brands and seeing a niche in the apparel industry for designs that were fashionable but also ultra-functional for modern women – using a kind of intelligent design template — Jia started her namesake fashion label, Jia Collection, four years ago.

Inventive and playful, Jia’s designs are highly versatile, with multi-functions and looks packed into one. I’m personally mad for Jia’s Hayden Winter Coat that can be worn six different ways (perfect for this traveler who packs for efficiency, not baggage check).

While I’m curious about what Jia’s Spring/Summer 2015 collection looks like, Jia herself is curious about how we will dress and live in twenty years, and especially about how fashion products can become much more intelligent as the industry catches up with all smart technology. Like Jia, I too hope to see less “fast fashion,” and more quality designs that serve good purposes.

Who are your heroes?
It sounds cliché, but definitely Steve Jobs. As a designer myself, I cannot help but have huge respect for him, not only for the smart products he championed, but also for how he never wavered and stuck to his vision. It took a tremendous amount of courage and faith not only in himself, but also in the idea that human beings who want better, smartly designed products that really solve problems.

And my other heroes are my parents. They went through the Cultural Revolution in China, and couldn’t pursue their career dreams and goals. Despite having very little, they were (still are) extremely loving and supportive, and gave everything they had to let me and my sister pursue what we love to do. To have two daughters who are both entrepreneurs can be quite daunting for traditional Chinese parents.  I hope I can be as selfless when I become a parent one day.

What is your current challenge?
Generating brand awareness and customer acquisition. Since my designs are one-of-a-kind and every piece is multifunctional, it’s hard to deliver the value propositions [i.e. showcasing all of their innovative features] if they are just hung like other garments in a retail store. Each of  my designs has “a story to tell,” to show how it can be worn multiple ways.

Traditional retail selling has therefore proven difficult for us, due to this factor, since it depends on the knowledge of each individual store staff, and how they present the items to customers.  Now we are focusing more on direct-to-consumer online sales, where we can explain our products more clearly with photos, videos and blog articles through different marketing channels.

Your greatest achievement?
To quit my last job and start my own business. To make the decision to start a business and forgo all the stability you have is often the most unnerving first step. It takes a huge leap of faith. And to get featured on major media such as The Huffington Post, Forbes, O, and InStyle magazines, etc.

As to the most rewarding moment: when a customer of mine tells me how much she loves my product, and how my designs make her work and travel life much easier.

What is your motto?
Health and happiness. If I am healthy and happy, everything else is secondary and a plus.

Why are you an entrepreneur?
Because it allows me to be myself. I ask myself often what is the meaning of life. For me the most important thing is to let my own being make a difference in the lives of other people. I am so blessed to be gifted with a good product design sense, and I want to use it to design multifunctional fashion products that will solve a modern woman’s daily fashion dilemmas.

What problem are you solving?
Providing versatile fashion for modern women on the go, and enabling them to look good much more easily for work, travel and leisure. I really dislike that many fashion brands just copy each other. Many more innovative fashion products could be designed that provide greater value.

And I think that women should have their own unique style, rather than just following a trend. By choosing designs that are classic with an edge, women can easily have the look they want. Also, with women living a more fast-paced lifestyle, they’re attending more events, both socially and professionally, and it can be challenging to dress stylishly, especially for women who don’t want to repeat outfits. Reversible and convertible designs therefore offer women the option of dressing much more efficiently.

What problem would you like solved?
To have a business partner who is like the ‘operating system’ in the movie Her, who knows exactly what I think and helps me to run the business, so I can just focus on the designs. But she cannot quit like she did in the movie!

Item you wish you had invented?
A machine that can record and print out all the designs I have in my head. Sometimes my pens are not fast enough to capture all of my ideas. For instance, right now I am designing reversible cashmere sweaters, which I have been contemplating for a long time, and I am excited about the launch of them.

Biggest regret?
I wish I could find a way to run my business so that I could spend more time with my family in China. But running a fashion business is pretty hands-on!

What talent would you like to have?
A photographic memory and the ability to play several music instruments. My father can — I still don’t understand why I didn’t get any part of those good genes!

Best pat on the back you’ve ever received?
When I was three-year old in kindergarten, I was so timid and shy. In our drawing class, even though I was quite good at drawing, I had trouble putting whiskers on a cat’s face. My kindergarten teacher told me ‘not to worry, all you need to do is just to add ticks to the cat’s face’, and she showed me how to do it and I followed her. I did a good job, and she praised me for trying my best. I was so happy that I could do it.

Looking back, it is a reflection of my perfectionist character. And I am very thankful to the teacher who encouraged me not to worry, but just do the best I could. It’s a small event but it helped to improve my confidence in a big way. And till this day, I live by the motto that as long as I have given my best effort in anything, I have no regrets.

And the second part on the back that meant a lot: getting my products featured twice on O Magazine, including a 6-way coat [a favorite of Adam Glassman, the magazine’s creative director] that everyone told me was impossible to make.

Advice you wish you’d had (or had followed)?
I wish I had known much earlier how important it is to really know what my customers want. As a fashion designer, we love to be creative and develop fancy designs. But for the products to sell, it’s not about what I like myself, but what my customers like, and finding a good balance between what they want and presenting something new and fresh.

Your pitch in 140 characters?
“Jia Collection is for the modern woman who is running from the office to a night out, the jet- setter who relishes in packing light, and the consummate style guru who loves to reinterpret a staple.” (Sorry,  is it 140 characters? I think it is way more now!)

Your bio in 6 words?
Pursuing happiness and meaning.

Your nails on a chalkboard moment?
When a retail store buyer told me that she liked my designs, but she would not buy them because the store staff wouldn’t be able to explain to the customers that my designs are reversible and provide more value.

And when a showroom that was interested in representing me told me that I should just stop designing multifunctional products, and focus on a trendy look.

The job you’d actually like?
I already love where I am the most!

Biggest misconception about being an entrepreneur?
I would like to emphasize my point here by adding the word ‘fashion’ to ‘entrepreneur.’  When I tell people I have my own fashion line – that I am a fashion entrepreneur, I often get judged immediately by how I dress (totally understandable) and categorized as someone who is perhaps a tad more superficial, or as one of the dramatic characters on Project Runway.

But, in fact, running a fashion business is just as — if not more — challenging than running any other business. Fashion entrepreneurs have to be quite down-to-earth. We need to get our hands dirty and roll up sleeves all the time to get gritty, hard work done. It’s not just all glamorous fashion shows and models. As anyone who has ever been at the back stage of a fashion show can tell you, many tears and sweat are shed for each show. We don’t always have our head in the creative clouds, which is necessary for designing; most of the time I am devoted to the daily grind of running a business, from dealing with a supplier to improving the SEO of our website.

Inc. or Rolling Stone or…..? Which magazine cover?
Inc.! Given my musical talent (or lack of it), Rolling Stone will be too unrealistic. But Vogue works too.

What are you reading?
The results of a survey we did recently to better our product designs and services. And the most recent issue of my favorite magazine AFAR, as well as Wear No Evil by Greta Eagan, who featured my designs a while back on her blog Fashion Me Green. She also featured Jia Collection in her book. I am very thankful, as she never mentioned that to me — I only found out about it myself!

What book is your must read?
Manuscript Found in Accra by Paul Coelho.

What book did you read which would have been put to better use as a doorstop?
I would not say a specific book. However, I was quite irritated by the ridiculous amount of ads in the September issue of Vogue magazine. I tore out half of the 900 pages that are just ads, so that I could at least lift the magazine and actually read the real substance in it. The torn-out pages can be better used as a doorstop.

If I wanted to do what you’re doing…what’s your advice?
There will be a lot to tell honestly, so why don’t you just get in touch with me?

What conference would you like to keynote?
TED talk on product design.

Short cut, long route, road less traveled? What’s your roadmap?
It can be any of them, as long as I know I am not wasting my time and actually making a contribution to society.

What makes you LOL?
Kids and puppies. My three-year old niece makes me LOL all the time, especially when she tries to imitate other people, including me.

What’s the most important startup/entrepreneurship lesson you’ve learned?
Don’t be afraid to ask for help and get advisors who have done successful business in your industry. I recently discovered Clarity, and it is a goldmine for entrepreneurs who want to learn from successful entrepreneurs.

What would be the title of your biography?
Haven’t thought much about this at all. But “Jia and her Fashion Empire” sounds like a great title! Ha!  Well, I guess I need to put more thought into that.

Your Ferris Bueller moment: if you could goof-off/skip out for a day, what would you do?
Too many things that I would like to do, however:

• • • Take a cooking lesson (I love to cook!)
    • Take a surfing lesson
    • Bring flowers to a good friend of mine
    • Hand-knit a sweater that I started three years ago
    • Walk around aimlessly

One place in time you’d like to visit?
Ten years from now, either in the U.S. or China, to see how many people are using the products that I designed, and to see if they are smiling or frowning when using them!

Part of the trick to staying focused?
Have a good sense of your own capabilities, and only put off doing something til the last minute when you know that not finishing it puts too much at stake.

You take a three-hour ocean tour and get stranded…what three items do you have with you?
A photo of my family, a whistle and a piece of clothing.

One last thing — what’s the question I should be asking  you?
Are you afraid of failure? What would you do if your business ever failed? To say I am not afraid of it is a lie. Of course I want to see it succeed, and right now it is on a good track.

But even if I fail, what I myself have learned during the process of building my business could never have been acquired if I had worked for someone else, and I would never trade that for anything else. The knowledge and experience will only prepare me that much better for my next venture.

If for whatever reason my business didn’t quite work out the way I expected, I would probably take some time off first to travel the world for a few months, and then come back to find a way to make the business work.  In the end, it is probably more about pivoting than giving up.