I would sleep in, but my cats, Jinxy and Peaches, wake me at 8.30am waiting to be fed. I’ve had Jinxy for six years, and Peaches is two months old. They’re cute and best friends. I give them dried food and clean the litter tray. My breakfast is an espresso from Starbucks. I’m glued to my iPhone, checking e-mails every 10 minutes.

I wear button-down shirts from Band of Outsiders, with jeans and one of my 35 pairs of Converse.

At weekends I wear T-shirts with cardigans by Rag & Bone. My apartment is in midtown Manhattan and the office is on West 37th, near Fifth Avenue. I should walk more, but taking a cab is easier.

I’m in by 10 unless I have model fittings, which start early. The fittings for June’s mid-season collection of 20 outfits took three days. We presented the clothes at Robert De Niro’s Greenwich hotel in Tribeca. Anna Wintour was there. She’s always been supportive. The cheapest item in this collection is an exquisitely made T-shirt in double-faced Japanese silk jersey for $290, and the most expensive is a coat at $5,900. It has laser-cut pink and red petals individually hand-sewn to the fabric and looks like a bouquet.

The economy is terrible, but we’re such a small company we can only grow. Eight of us handle production and sales, and everything is made a few blocks away by my incredibly skilled dressmakers. Clients aren’t all perfect sample size, but I know we make women look beautiful.

I’m always flying off somewhere. Next week I’m doing a trunk show in Dallas, which is a chance for people to pre-order clothes before they go into stores. Trunk shows usually include lunch or hors d’oeuvres, but in New York I get through the day on coffee and a Clif energy bar.

My most famous client is Mrs Obama, who’s not an average size. She’s redefined beauty in so many ways. Although she started wearing my designs last September, we’ve never actually met. She first saw my clothes in Ikram Goldman’s shop in Chicago, and I had no idea she would be wearing any of them for high-profile occasions. There was the white dress for the inaugural ball, a pink sheath dress for the Vogue cover, and three outfits for the London G20 summit. And she met the Queen wearing my coat! In terms of label recognition, it’s given me a huge boost and opened up a real interest in young designers. And seeing the president’s wife looking so beautiful in my ball gown was a huge, life-changing, emotional surprise for me. The dress is going to the Smithsonian in Washington. I was invited to the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner recently, seated next to the ambassador from Iran. It was held in the Governor’s Mansion with a great mix of people. There was the TV interviewer Katie Couric, Mrs Obama’s social secretary Desiree Rogers, Mayor Bloomberg and the actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers. Fortunately, my family give me a reality check once in a while.

I was born in Taiwan, where my father has a business. Mom took my younger brother, Kevin, and me to Vancouver so we would have more opportunities in school. Dad travelled back and forth. We speak Mandarin together. Whenever I do a show they come to support me. Taiwanese families have a strong work ethic and high expectations. Kevin’s in business with my dad.

I was the oddball, sculpting and painting since I was four. I guess I was considered strange because I could sew. I studied at a highly academic school in Massachusetts, where I wore a uniform that was pure Hogwarts academy. I worked hard and can hold a conversation about most things.

At 16 I freelanced with Integrity Toys, and that turned into a real job. I had the idea of making collectable dolls where the clothes reflected what was going on in high-end fashion. I still love designing the dolls. They sell in FAO Schwarz for $150. But I’m rarely satisfied. I’m my own worst critic. A master clutter eliminator, I’m always throwing things out. My mom keeps everything. She has a mermaid glued onto paper I made when I was five.

But fashion isn’t fluffy. I can’t just be a designer, I have to understand business, too. My head is full of new designs for fabrics and clothes. I’m what you call “scattered”, with 10 Moleskine notebooks for sketches. And I go through boxes of Pilot Hi-Tec C 0.4 pens, working on my couch or at the kitchen table. Like most New Yorkers, I eat out. But I also love to cook for friends. I shop at Whole Foods Market in Union Square. My best dish is shepherd’s pie.

On 70th Street this Sunday I saw a girl in her twenties in something from one of my runway collections. I didn’t dress her, she just chose to wear my design and looked great.

I told her: “I love your look!” She didn’t know it was me.

I’m home by 8.30 to feed the cats. They give me a great welcome. If I’m staying in, still glued to my iPhone, I stay up late and catch up on TV shows. I’m a big fan of Law & Order. Sometimes it’s so hard to fall asleep I take a pill. My dreams can be weird. But I only ever remember bits of them.

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