74 | FORBES ASIA OCTOBER 2017I
n the midtown Manhattan studio of Malaysian de-
signer Zang Toi, a room with a crystal chande-
lier, 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 up-
stairs 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 entre-
preneurship,” 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 signa-
ture outfit is a mini-kilt. He works in a famously liberal in-
dustry 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 col-
ors of Malay flowers and cakes—landed him in a Vogue ar-
ticle on the new faces of the decade. Since then, his roster
of clients has included Sharon Stone, Elizabeth Taylor, Me-
linda Gates, Kirstie Alley, Patti LaBelle and Ivana Trump,
as well as members of the Saudi royal family and a Hearst
or two.
After almost 3 0 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 8 00-square-foot store-
front on Lexington Avenue near 7 5 th 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-brand-
ed greeting cards for Papyrus, the North American statio-nery chain. He says his business is “small but very profit-
able,” 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 Chi-
nese 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 2 0 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 maga-
zine and dutifully completing an entrance-application as-
signment 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 19 84 , 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 ac-
countant, a tennis coach and an actuary.
Toi’s mother, elegant at 8 9, still wears cheongsams, only
now they’re all by Zang Toi. He recently made her a navyForbes Life ZANG TOI
A Flair for Fashion
BY CHEN MAY YEEZang Toi came to New York from Malaysia and soon launched his own label. Today he
often wears a kilt, dresses a lineup of famous women and supports Donald Trump.