Today we’d like to introduce you to Asia Xiong.
Hi Asia, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
It all started from watching an episode of MTV’s, The Hills, when Lauren goes off to Los Angeles to attend school at FIDM and fulfill her dream to work in the fashion industry. When I watched her begin living her life on her terms, I thought to myself, that’s exactly what I want. I wanted to move out to Los Angeles, attend FIDM, work in the fashion industry, and live freely.
Now, my love for fashion stemmed from wanting to be like my older sister, Cindy. She’s always had an eye for fashion and was always up to date on the latest trends. Watching her find her own unique style and hearing her knowledge on fashion was inspiring to me. I thought she was always so cool and mature because she always presented her best self with an innovative fashionable outfit. She also was the first child to leave the household, and I thought by doing so, it was a great first example for me on what independency was.
Might you ask where that independence craving came from…Since I was 7/8 years old, that was something that I felt in my gut that was essential for me to experience in order to live a happy, peaceful life. Before I get into that, let me begin by mentioning that I was born a 2nd generation Hmong American in a small city named Eau Claire, Wisconsin. And growing up in my household and in my culture, chaos was a familiar feeling. Although there were a lot of beautiful memories I had as a child, the only ones that really stick out to me were all of the bad ones.
There was a lot of physical, emotional, and verbal abuse that I witnessed between my parents and my two older sisters. Whether it was arguments between my mom and my sisters, or my mom and my dad, or between both sisters, I’ve seen it all. Not only was it just me, but I also had two younger brothers who also had seen some of the abuse as well. I just remember feeling a lot of anger, sadness, and confusion but also some bravery as I felt I had the responsibility to protect my younger brothers from seeing those things.
I remember one day, I had run away from home with my older sisters because of a disagreement I had with my mom. And during that walk, we took to our cousin’s house who lived a few miles away (we eventually were found by our parents and went back home); I thought to myself, “When I get older, I am going to do everything I can to build a much happier and safer life for myself. I will be successful and build a family of my own that won’t have to experience the things I’ve experienced.”
And ever since then, I’ve always kept that standard and used it as motivation to get me to where I am today. I will mention that now in this current state of my life, I’ve come to the conclusion that having that standard for myself also had it’s cons. It had prevented me from living in the present and being grateful. So I’ve recently let that standard go and am now so much more at peace.
Fast forward to 10 years later, it’s 2012, I’m 17, graduated from Stillwater Area High School in Stillwater, Minnesota. It’s then my 18th birthday and about to be the end of my last Summer in Minnesota. I had gotten accepted into FIDM’s Visual Communications program and am moving to California before the Fall starts. I was fortunate enough to have the support of both of my parents to allow me to move to the West Coast to fulfill my dreams of working as a fashion stylist. I honestly don’t know if they had really believed in me, but I knew they wanted me to go and learn on my own. It was as if they knew that this new chapter was going to shape me into the person that I am today. And I am forever grateful for them and them allowing me to make this decision.
I attended FIDM for only two years graduating with my associates because I began to realize that my student loans would continue racking up if I had continued and I needed to make more money in order to continue living in California. My sister and I were living in North Long Beach at the time. After graduating, I stayed working in retail stores such as Forever 21, Urban Outfitters. I had fashion styling internships with Annex Magazine and Dimepiece LA. (Both no longer in business). Slowly, I had begun moving towards merchandising and worked with Bloomingdales as a visual merchandiser until I got my first big “break”.
I was offered a stylist position at Shein in the fall of 2017. Boy was I so excited to get out of the retail space and begin doing something that I truly loved and was passionate about. I will say what a whirlwind that was. During my time there, I had gained a lot of knowledge and experience on how the e-commerce industry works. I had done everything from styling to producing, art direction, sample coordinating, casting/booking, studio managing, hiring/training, set designing, and working with the marketing team on executing the U.S. pop-up shops. I felt like I had done it all there. Not only was I feeling very very overworked, but I had felt very very underpaid. Nonetheless, I am forever grateful for my experience there and the connections I made.
But heading into the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, I decided to leave my position as Lead stylist/ studio manager at Shein and take a mental break from everything. I had hit rock bottom. My nervous system had no more fight or flight. All I felt was just everything that I hadn’t felt for the past 16 years of my life. I realized that ever since I was that 7/8-year-old girl running away from home with that deep thought in my head, that standard that I set for myself, I was in go-go-go mode. Autopilot. Could not stop until I reached the final destination. I truly manifested my way to where I was.
I had taken about a good long year working on my mental health, going through multiple therapists. Working on processing and healing my complex PTSD from multiple past traumas. Understanding the importance of having stillness in my life and what beauty that brings.
During that time, I couldn’t continue not working, so I decided to go freelance as a stylist and begin looking for work again. I had a great 2.5 years working freelance as a stylist. I got to have so many amazing work opportunities assisting and working as the lead.
One of my first big gigs as a freelancer was styling for a campaign for the Italian brand, Alanui which ended up being featured in Vogue Italia.
I will always be forever grateful for the opportunities of assisting Costumer and Stylist Karla Miranda on her various commercials with companies like McDonalds, Google, Estrella Jalisco, and clients like 100Thieves, Roddy Rich and Patrick Starr.
Never will I ever forget meeting or take for granted Megan Soria, who brought me under her wing as an assistant to Fashion Editor Alex Harrington. Together we worked on Vogue covers and spreads with celebs like HoYeon Jung, Kendal Jenner, Jennifer Lopez, and Erykah Badu.
I also got many great opportunities continuing in the e-com styling world with brands like Forever21, Nike, Amaryllis, Skies Are Blue, Current Air, Lipsy London, Essense of Australia, and PTCL.
One other cool thing was that I got myself an IMDB credit for a short film I costumed for! The film is called 30 & 3, written by Jamie Parcon and directed by Rommel Andaya.
So as we come to the present day, ten years later (from the beginning of college to now), I am still in the fashion industry, now currently working as a fashion stylist at Lulus. A womenswear online retailer. With all of the ups and downs I’ve encountered over the last few years, my dreams and passions have slightly shifted. And I am totally okay with it. I believe we should all have the opportunity to have more than one dream and to live out more than one dream. We only live one life, so why not try it all out and do everything that we want to do.
I have learned so much from taking care of my mental health that I’ve seen the effects it has on my overall wellbeing. All I want to do now is be a crutch, a support for others to do the same. So, I’ve taken the last year to focus on obtaining my health and wellness coaching certification from Wellcoaches School of Coaching. I recently passed my exams and will be continuing with my education to also become a certified personal trainer in the next couple of years. My next goal is to become a personal wellness coach/cpt to help other individuals and hopefully, individuals who are also in the creative field who have experienced burnout, find out how to cultivate calm & stillness into their life.
With all that said, none of this would’ve ever happened without the support and love from my best friend, family, and my amazing soon-to-be husband. I understand now how life happens for you and not to you. I am at peace with my past, my present, and my future.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
There were so many obstacles along the way. As I mentioned in my story, I had endured a lot of mental health battles towards the end of my time at Shein and leading into my time working freelance. Consciously I was aware of having a year-long depressive episode, but unconsciously I think I was depressed for quite some time. I had to navigate the battle between my career and my health and that was really difficult and scary for me. I had gotten my dream job in my hand and have been at it for a few years that I couldn’t fathom throwing it all away. But my body was telling me in many ways, that if I had kept going, I would’ve crashed. I had to leave my position at Shein, and it had added to my depression because I had tied so much of my worth to my career. Without it, I felt like I was useless, had no purpose, and a failure.
Not only was leaving Shein difficult for me, but it was about trying to navigate how I was going to jumpstart my career in freelance during a pandemic. I am a huge introvert and lack in social skills, so networking was very hard for me to do, especially when I wasn’t in a constant environment with other creatives. I really had to find other ways to network and find jobs, so I spent a lot of time virtually networking on Facebook groups, Linkedin, and Upwork. I also reached out to past acquaintances to see if they knew of any work or had any work that I could assist on.
Going back to my mental health, I was struggling with the pace of my healing process. I wanted to get back to work so badly because again, work was my value and my worth. So I felt like I had to do everything I could to speed up the process of healing and figuring out my old traumas so that I could move on and continue living my life. Little did I know, it doesn’t work like that, and healing isn’t linear. I had to face a lot of past traumatic experiences that I had endured as a young child and deal with some grievances earlier that year. It felt like one thing after another.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I work fiercely in the e-commerce business side of styling, where I am on-set daily for our in-studio shoots, styling product on-model. Although I specialize in e-commerce styling, previously, I have also styled for commercials, editorials, films, music videos, and have done personal styling.
I am most proud of being able to separate my work from my worth. As mentioned before, that was a huge challenge for me in the past and it caused a lot of sadness and feelings of unworthiness. I never want to be that person again. Instead, I am now able to feel more lighthearted about my work and make it more of a hobby rather than my life.
What makes me different is that I am a Hmong American woman working in this field doing what I do. Growing up, I didn’t have any role models or mentors to look up in my community when it came to working in the fashion industry. I felt as though, during that time, the Hmong Community did not take part in fashion education/careers. That made me feel a bit singled out that I wasn’t taking a normal career path like some of my peers. After making the decision to follow my dreams, I feel proud of myself for getting to where I am today while being who I am today, and hopefully, now, I can be that role model/mentor to other Hmong American youth who may have felt like they were in a similar position.
What matters most to you?
What matters most to me is being able to bring stillness and calm into today’s society, which can sometimes be chaotic and overwhelming. Whether that is collaborating with others in my work environment or coaching a client, I ensure that I can provide a safe space for acceptance of them being their true, authentic selves.
I believe it is important to balance life out with moments of tranquility in order to make room for self-awareness and growth so that we can be our best selves.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.asiaxiong.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/asiaxiong/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/asiaxiong/
Image Credits
Kori Tamondong, Phoebe Seligman, Ila Moua, Richard Huk, Megan Soria, Crystal Keo (personal photo)
