NEW YORK: EARLIER last month, just at the start of Malaysian-born fashion icon Datuk Zang Toi’s Spring/Summer 2015 runway show at New York Fashion Week, someone in the audience yelled out “Happy Anniversary!” and the star-studded crowd broke into applause.
Fashion shows normally end with applause, but this particular show, by one of Malaysia’s most famous sons, began with applause.
This was no ordinary show. It was a night of celebration of the 25th anniversary of Zang Toi’s fashion line.
The 53-year-old Kelantanese, who had arrived in the United States to study fashion at the distinguished Parsons School of Design in New York with “just US$300 in my pocket”, has long made it in this fashion capital of the world.
That night, he called his new collection “The American Dream”, as a tribute to his adopted country.
The who’s who of the fashion business was there to join in the celebration.
Wendy Brandes, award-winning designer of New York’s Wendy Brandes fine jewellery line who attended the show, said 25 years was a long time in fashion.
“You have to multiply fashion years the way you would for dog years. Like, 25 years in fashion is at least 100 years in another industry,” she wrote in her blog.
At the end of the show, Zang received a standing ovation in recognition of his 25 years in fashion.
A production crew member and a model surprised the designer with a cake in honour of his triumph.
The entire audience sang Happy 25th Anniversary to You before Zang, who had to be dragged back to the end of the runway by a photographer, blew out his candle.
Zang told US TV network Fox News after the show that he was a very shy man and was embarrassed by the attention.
“I hate walking the runway… I always will.” He, however, said he felt honoured and would always cherish the memory.
While studying in New York, he needed a job. He then worked with a well-known Soho designer and his fashion career later took off.
He told Fox News he is living proof of the American dream, “any immigrant who comes here, we can still live the American dream”.
Zang received a special mention from Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak at a dinner which he hosted for the Malaysian diaspora in New York last week.
“Zang Toi is a success story of a boy born on the second floor of a grocery shop in Kuala Krai and succeeded as a fashion designer,” Najib said of Zang, who sat at the main table.
“Whether in New York or all over the world, we are Malaysians. Take pride to be Malaysian. You are still Malaysian and a true Malaysian. What is important is to be with us as 1Malaysia,” Najib said.
The youngest of seven children of a local grocer, Zang landed in New York City at the age of 20, where he studied at Parson’s.
In August 1989, he opened his atelier and soon after, US Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour featured Zang in the magazine’s March 1990 issue and was one of the first Asian designers championed by the renowned editor.
In 1990, Zang was awarded the Mouton Cadet Young Designer of the Year, which recognises the top, young, US designer of the year.
In a Newsday article published in 1991, Frank De Caro enthusiastically noted of the designer and his success, “If anyone is THE NEXT BIG THING, it’s him.”
Zang called his 25 years in business as one “great journey”.
“Those were the early days of my struggle… I had to do multiple jobs to make ends meet, but it was also a learning process for my later years in fashion, which is a very competitive field and where the key to success is sheer hard work, with a bit of luck,” he told one interviewer recently.