“I think I must be some sort of crazy person,” says local fashion designer Wanny Tang, referring to the way she handles every aspect of her business by herself. She's not very big on giving herself a lot of time to get it all done, either. For instance, when she presented her very first fall collection in 2005 at B.C. Fashion Week, she applied on deadline day. So by the time she got word that she was in, she had about three weeks to pull together a complete line.

“I was thrilled, but terrified,” recalls Tang, calling from her Vancouver home. “When I sent in my application, I had only a few pieces that I had been fooling around with for a while, so I was a nervous wreck the whole time.”

Amazingly, she pulled it off and received some very favourable reviews for her pink-heavy sportswear as well as her goth-tinged club wear. That's more than she can say for her first stab at sewing back in Hong Kong, where she was born and raised until she immigrated to Canada when she was 17. “I remember when I was in elementary school, I did some embroidery project and when I handed it in, the teacher was really upset with me because she figured that I cheated by getting somebody else to do it,” Tang says. “I was totally hurt by that.”

But she didn't let the experience bother her for too long. In fact, after she graduated from the University of Saskatchewan with a science-in-home-economics degree, she returned to Asia””this time to China, where she worked as chief designer for Sergio Valente's hip-hop label, Major Damage. Furthermore, she hopes to head back there yet again, this time to show off her own line during Hong Kong Fashion Week. For now, however, those plans are on the back burner.

“For me to establish my reputation and my name here in Canada is of equal importance,” Tang says, “because I want people to know that I was educated here, I live here, and my collections are being influenced by the lifestyle here.”

Despite this gung ho attitude, she had to bow out of presenting a fall 2006 collection. “I needed to reevaluate the direction of my business,” she says. “I do everything on my own, without any help from anyone. So financially and physically, I needed to slow down a little bit.”

Once rejuvenated, though, she was more than ready to launch her 2007 spring collection, which debuted at the recent B.C. Fashion Week. And she was even ahead of schedule this time around””that is, until three weeks prior to her runway return, when she decided to introduce a men's line.

“I keep asking myself, 'Why are you always putting yourself through all these kinds of challenges?'” says Tang. “I guess the answer is 'It's worth it.'”

Starting a new line from scratch wasn't her only obstacle this season. “I was hit by a car two-and-a-half weeks before the show,” she says. “Luckily, I didn't have major, major damage. But it did affect me. I was pretty hysterical at the time. When the ambulance came, they wanted to take me to the hospital, but I said to them, 'I can't. I don't have time. There's so much work to do.'?”

In the end, she did manage to complete both lines, and again her work was well received””especially her women's collection. Among the sportier standouts is her black-and-white Adidas-esque stretch dress that has UV–protection properties worked into the material. Much like most of her spring 2006 collection, which included an oceanic-blue, tennis-inspired minidress, her 2007 activewear is obscenely cute. Yet for her fall 2005 collection, Tang worked in a lot of ominous black with thick, white Frankenstein stitching on items like her iconic hooded, midthigh cotton-and-Lycra trench coat. They may have different colour palettes, but the one thing all her collections have in common is they almost didn't make it to the runway in time.

“There were a couple of moments where I was thinking that I should give it up,” Tang says. “But I guess I was so determined [after missing the fall collection] that I wasn't going to let anything stop me. Sometimes, I'm just unstoppable.”