We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Viola Wan a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Viola, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?
Being a Capricorn we are natural workaholics lol. It is so hard, to be honest not to think about doing work, trying to learn something new, or just doing something all the time. If you are Capricorn you know what I am talking about. All jokes aside though, there are a few things and some really incredible people in my life I learned how to have a work ethic over the years. First, all the females in my family growing really showed me what is real work ethic looks like on top of the idea of female can achieve/ do everything men can do and beyond! One of my grandmas built one of the biggest hotels by herself when she was 55years old in the 90s while nobody believed in her; my other grandma (my mum’s mother) took care of EVERYTHING at the household from cooking, cleaning, picking me up from school every day throughout my school years in kingdom garden to middle school. I remember she would wake up 4am-5am everyday to our local farmer market to get the freshest vegetables, fruits, and meat every morning and prepare everyone breakfast by the time we woke up around 7 am. She’s been on this type of schedule ever since I had memory til she got stage 4 lung cancer passed away when I was 15 years old; my mum is also another woman in my family I admire so much, I remember ever since my grandma got sick, she was pregnant with my sister, working a full-time job, taking care of the whole family, cleaning and cooking. These are the woman showed me what is work ethic look like growing up in real life. Additionally, with my professional dancing background. I started dancing the Chinese national dance when I was 4 years old, I remember I almost spent all my summers growing up in dance studios either preparing for level exams ( there are 10 levels in Chinese national dance, I passed every single one, and passed level 10 when I was in 6th grade) or preparing for international and national performances/ competitions. I won a few international first places, and have been on China’s national TV for numerous times growing up. All these achievements arent just happen overnight, it required HARD WORK, early mornings, late nights rehearsals, trying to do my homework, study in between our rehearsals.
Fast forward to moving to Los Angeles by myself at 16years old, wanted to really pursue dance back then professionally, but felt not good at dance compare to everyone in the industry. I used to spend almost 7 days a week at the dance studio( I go right after school on weekdays) and continue practicing in my room or backyard for about 3-4 years. At the same time I still had all As at school and 4.0+ GPA with my honor classes.
Dance definitely changed my life, and taught me that if I want something bad enough I have to work hard for it. Still applying everything I learned from dance til today in life
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I am a fashion designer and wardrobe stylist with a dancing background. “Simply but in the most extreme ways” would be a great sentence to describe my own styles when comes to my design and styles. I LOVE fashion so much and if you ever work with me or have any discussion with me that fashion related you would know the passion and love I have for this. To me fashion is so special to me because I see this as a blank canvas I am able to combine all my art (fine art, dance, etc) together. Bold patterns, colors, and textures come from my unique understanding and ability to create beauty from scratch from everything I have been through and seen in my life so far. And when it comes to wardrobe styling, I provide a variety of services including music videos, red carpet, personal shopping, brand campaign shoots, and outfit planning. What special about styling is I know I. am so gifted in fashion, I can literally see people in different wardrobes in my mind without them putting on; the ability to help others to achieve their vision with my gift and talent is something so special to me, and every time when I see the smile my client put on after everything always makes my heart full. Moreover, being a wardrobe stylist who’s also a fashion designer who can pattern, and sew everything I think is very special because I actually get the opportunity to make whatever I have in mind for styling into life if I really can’t get the pieces I am looking for in the market.
My brand is called “THE WAN”. “ ‘WÀN’ is my last name which is also my grandmother last name, which “WAN” is also a rare last name in China. “WAN”= ‘ONE’ in my brand name because I want to inspire others to be THE WÀN(ONE) AND ONLY for everything in life!” For a very long time after moving to LA, she felt she never was fit in any community, she didn’t see anyone looks like her or just do everything she wanted to do on the top she can look up to. “ I want to make it to the top so bad, have the type of platform I’m going to have because I want to show and give back to the younger generation of artists, creators, designers… (who might have similar background of me, people in the minority group, people of color, or anyone who does not born with the type of privilege they have to really allow them to pursue their dreams) we do not need to fit into anywhere to be “successful” the way we want to be; anything in life is possible, it really just matter of how bad you want it!” Viola says, “ if you feel you don’t belong to this world, make your OWN world. BE THE WÀN AND ONLY. ”
Currently making my 8-10 looks collection will be debuting in 2024, I am very excited about this!! I am finalizing all my looks, fabrics, starting to make samples and doing fitting one by one.
At the same time, I am still taking custom orders, and styling clients, so if anyone wants to enhance their own wardrobe, photoshoots, video shoots, definitely for free to reach out:)
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
There are a lot of qualities, skills or areas of knowledge are very important in our journey I think. If I have to really pick three, I’m going to say these three: 1. Be consistent at whatever you are trying to achieve. Yes life happens, there are things that happen unexpectedly that might set you back. If you want something bad enough, you have to be disciplined, have to make sacrifice in certain areas of life to make it happen. Greatness takes time, so really be patient with yourself, your journey. No success is overnight. The “overnight” story you see, they already put in years and years of work to get to where they at today. 2. Don’t ever compare yourself to anyone else or get distracted of other people’s opinions. 90% time people do not know what is going on in your life, who are you, and what you are capable of. Everyone’s journey is different, never compare your chapter 1 to someone’s chapter 10. We are all unique in our own ways, that’s why for example in the fashion world, there’s only one Alexander McQueen, one Rick Own, one Christien Dior, and so on. Take people’s advice/ opinion with a grant of salt and never take it personally because sometimes what they say is not a reflection of you, its a reflection of them. 3. Take care of yourself and live your life. Health is wealth, without health, there’s nothing you can achieve in reality. Work will always be there, put yourself first and take breaks as you go because you need and deserve it! ( this is something I have been learning and trying to get better in my own life as well). Life is very short, you never know what is going to happen. As creatives ourselves, I just think our inspiration is from life, if you don’t even have a life you will eventually get drained and burnt out.
The best advice I think I want to give folks in their early journey is never afraid to try and learn new skills, never put yourself in a box because you never know what you best at til you really do so. Last but not least, who you are as a person is wayyyy>>>> than your talent, there are millions of talented people, but what get you inside the “door” and stay in it is you as a person:)
How would you describe your ideal client?
My short-term goal as a fashion designer and wardrobe stylist is to consistently work with top music artists I love such as Latto, Saweetie, Coi Leray, Lakeyah, Shenseea, and more for their music videos and live performance.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.thewanandonly.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamviolawan/
- Other: Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@iamviolawan
