On Wednesday, January 20th (2016) my group and I went to the 3.1 Philip Lim office to interview (one of) the founder(s)/CEO/president of the designer company. Wen Zhou told us her incredible and inspiring story of how she got where she is today. Wen came to America, from China, when she was around 13 years old. Her family moved into the lower east side, which wasn’t a great neighborhood then. She had to learn Cantonese first (because in Chinatown most people spoke Cantonese) to be understood. Then she learned english. She went to school but also worked as a seamstress in a sweatshop to help provide for her family. After she graduated high school, she had the grades to go to college, but not the money. She went to a community college that specialized in clothing and designing. Wen told us she didn’t have any hobbies and she went to the college because it was the only thing she knew. She had many small jobs like; working at McDonalds, being a delivery girl, etc. She got a job in delivering fabrics to big clothing companies. During this job she had delivered to Philip Lim many times and they became friends. When she was 21 she started a heat tech company called Aegis, which she still has today. Ten years later Philip Lim and herself decided to start a clothing company, with his name on it (because he is a famous clothing designer, most popular in china). They called it 3.1 Philip Lim because they were both 31. Wen made herself President and CEO of the company and Philip Lim is the designer. It was so inspiring how she got to where she is today from where she was around 1988 (when she first moved here). Her story shows that you can push through all the barriers and all the sexism if you work hard enough. She has a very gender diverse company today, which she insists on having. We learned a lot from Wen.
