Sandy Liang’s designs are definitely for the downtown dream girl.

New York born and raised, Sandy is inspired by everything from her Chinese grandmother’s style to the 90s streetwear looks she saw as a kid. A Parsons grad, Sandy started her brand straight out of college which is totally ballsy but has seriously paid off! Unlike a lot of brands for NYFW, Sandy doesn’t looks for models who all look the same. She uses her friends and girls from the neighborhood to represent her looks.

We talked to Sandy about what goes into creating your own brand and how to do NYFW your own way. Check it out below!

Was working on this collection any different compared to past collections, or do you have a similar approach in your process?

I mean you took the words right out of my mouth, like for me I think part of being true to myself as a designer is not always trying to reinvent the wheel every single time because I just do things a certain way and that’s why the clothes look the way they do. So it’s always an ongoing process, like from the last collection which is different, because I’m into different things all the time.

 I feel like you also have a really strong aesthetic, and in terms of the presentation, do you decide what you want that to look like in the early stages before putting it all together?

Definitely not because then it would just be about the presentation informing the clothes and for me it’s like the clothes first because the clothes are everything. I don’t even think about styling or color. I don’t even think about merchandising which is so bad because if my sales person heard that he’d be like, “no, not cool.” But yeah, I’m just going with my gut literally and then it all falls into place and we edit but in the beginning its very raw, its just like whatever I’m feeling.

@brrch_floral making magic

A post shared by @sandyliang on Sep 10, 2017 at 3:31pm PDT

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For beauty, what did you have in mind this season?

We go for the individual look, it’s like whatever works for that girl individually is what I want to push. I don’t want every girl to look the same, that works for a lot of brands but for me it’s about like, these girls, some of them are like my really good friends, some of them like live in my neighborhood, it’s just about what looks good on them cause they are the people who inspire me and what I see every day.

You curated such a cool group of girls to represent the brand!

I am my own casting agent. I ask my friends, “Who are you into? What’s happening here?” And it’s just an ongoing thing. Some of the girls, I’ve used in my past presentations so it’s kind of like an ongoing rotation. And then some of the girls are new and then some of the girls I’ll want to bring onto the next presentation, it’s just whatever I’m feeling and also whatever makes sense because some of them are really busy.

That’s awesome, so you do the casting and designing, what other areas are you interested in?

I feel like my team is three people and for a long time it was two people so I’m used to doing everything myself. And it’s not like a hard part of the job, it’s just like a part of the job. And I’m a control freak so it’s okay for me to do all of this.

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How do you balance all of those jobs?

I don’t know!!!! Don’t ask, I’m like barely hanging on.

What’s your normal workday like?

I get coffee. I bring my dog to work, I work, I go home, I cook dinner with my boyfriend. On the weekends we’ve been getting away from the city a lot. We’ve been like driving to Maine, that’s where my boyfriend’s from, so that’s been great to just get out for a bit.

Sandy Liang SS 18 Lookbook

Photos by: Kathy Lo

Models: Sahara Lin, Katerina, Grandma