If Tanya Taylor's designs look familiar, it’s because you might have seen someone like the First Lady of the United States Michelle Obama wearing one of her pieces.

A Toronto native, Taylor launched her first collection in 2012 and her designs have garnered plenty of attention ever since—notably from the likes of women like Reese Witherspoon, Taylor Swift, and Beyoncé.

The fashion designer likes to work with bright hues and floral patterns, and her latest collection exerts colourful tones and feminine prints.

We sat down with the New York-based designer at Holt Renfrew last week and gained some first-hand insight into the inspiration for her designs.

Taylor told us a story of how her latest collection—Resort 2016—came to be. One weekend, she travelled to upstate New York with some friends with the idea to set off colourful smoke bombs. They ended up creating massive hot pink, blue, and green clouds.

“I loved watching it and I thought about how I could translate that into prints and translate that into a photo shoot and that’s kind of where Resort came from,” said Taylor in an interview with the Straight. “It came from this very free-spirited personality.”

When it comes to the choice of lines and shapes for her designs, Taylor likes to keep things simple and long-lasting.

“I like not complicated things in terms of silhouette. I like silhouettes to stay very classic, and then what becomes exciting about them is the prints and the fabrics and the texture,” said the young designer.

She also explains the reason for her frequent use of floral fabrics in her collections.

“I love looking at floral patterns and I think women love florals because they can identify what the print is, and it feels like they understand it,” added Taylor. “I think it gives such an amazing palette for colour, like flowers themselves but then also all the kind of details [that] I love filling in.”

We also asked Taylor what she thought of her Vancouver customers.

“From what I know so far, they are extremely savvy, they travel a lot, they see everything, and you really have to give them something that is fresh and exciting for them to be loyal,” said Taylor. “Just from walking around, I’m amazed at how fashionable they are… it has a cross-culture of so many different places kind of coming to be in Vancouver and you see that in their style.”

Taylor’s Resort 2016 collection can be found at Holt Renfrew Vancouver (737 Dunsmuir Street).