Confessions of an undergraduate fashionista
The first look on her makes me feel lucky that I've chosen to dress formally for this interview. It is not that I've at least bring out my best in a polite way. Rather, I feel lucky to have dressed 'safely' as not to ashame myself by ameteurly dressing up myself with hard-to-follow fashion statements.
Her body hugging dress reveals her slim silhoutte and long legs, matched with the pair of white pumps (heels). I observed her skin was slightly tanned as we sit down at a tropical-themed cafe in Sunway for the interview. She instantly made a statement in my mind with her big and round eyes, as well as her brown coloured long hair.
Lilium Yang is no ordinary undergraduate girl who knows only to study and enjoy life. The beautiful young lady actually operates an e-boutique with her friend and boyfriend while persuing her degree in Food Science at Monash University.
Born to secondary school teachers Yang Chor Chau and Lai Mei Yoke, Lilium Yang shares the same beauty genes with her elder sister, Sharon Yang.
The 21 year old Lilium celebrates her birthdays on 2nd of September, which gives her virgoan's characteristics, graceful and intelligent.
Hail from Ave Maria Convent Ipoh, she sort of proves the statement that says Ipoh produces the most beautiful girls.
“We stay at Pasir Puteh, so, basically my parents fetched my sister and I to and from the school in Ipoh city central every schooling day,” says the friendly young lady.
The animal lover has owned several pets before, and now left with the two dogs Trixie and Melor at home.
“ At home, my dad and mum are quite strict about us (sisters),” she says. “ But my mum is usually the fierce one (laugh).”
Lilium is indeed very close to her elder sister, who has the more sporty side compared to her girly self.
“She just love to be outside under the sun, but not so for me,” she smiled.
She added that she's really close with her sister that they've never quarreled and share lots of things, which includes clothes.
“Although she has a different style from me, I still buy her clothes or things she like when I see it on sale on e-boutiques,” she further explains.
“Sometimes she just come to my place and take whatever clothes she wants from Candy-Colours (her e-boutique)...yes, just take!” she laughed.
Of course, they share secrets and helped her sister sneaks out at night during the high school days, where she will open the backdoor gate for her sister.
“Our parents don't let us go out at night especially if we have classes the next day,” says Lilium.
Her parents have once dislike her first boyfriend who was then working and much older than her, and eventually cut off all her connections, which lead to a break up then.
“We actually fought against our parents together, to get them to let us go out at night and things,” she added.
Now, she is happily staying with her boyfriend, Teoh Ben Jee, who is also her business partner.
When asked whether her parents dislike this current boyfriend of hers, she answers, “ no, mainly because we're both students and his background is similar to mine.”
The sisters joined the school's cheerleading team, which have gained fame through time and acquired medals from the national cheerleading championship.
“I injured my hand from a stunt to hold my teamate's leg, and I also broke my leg's tendon doing a split,” she says as she tells of one of the many talents she has.
She has learnt piano until grade seven, together with violin and ballet, and some gymnastics.
“I often got backache and sore in the muscles from practicing the stunts, and it was very stressful when the championship is just around the corner,”she goes on to elaborate.
She added, “we won the best dressed for three years in a row for the central or national championship, and also won the north region championship.”
One would not imagine this fabulous young lady who frequent clubs in sexy dresses was a timid little girl who rather survive on her mum's luch boxes than risking herself at dealing with the school canteen operator.
This bubbly girl admit that she has even cheated in school examination before along with her friend. The funny part is, as she put it, they still pass the paper after the teacher deducted 30 marks from each of them because they actually scored the high 80 marks for the answers.
Now, studying away from hometown, life is more colourful with night life in Klang Valley.
“I was in Form Six for about a week, and then begged to go to college. I cried and talked to them and finally, I was in Taylor's for A-level,” she answers when asked about her path of pre-university.
Started from a timid girl, she began to live independently as life gets more fun and exciting.
“She's different among the 'pretties' ,” compliment her coursemate, Rocky Chung.
Another coursemate of her, Michelle Lee describe her as 'kind hearted and is a good friend'.
Her laboratory partner, Seow Wen Jhe says, “ Lilium is a nice, female-like girl who likes to wear dresses compared to most who wear jeans nowadays. She has a good attitude and is friendly. For most cases, she is very ‘cincai’ or not fussy. She is also very smart but lazy. This is evident where she likes to skip some classes but still manage to score high marks. Besides that, she is very helpful and not ‘kiasu’. She is happy and funny most of the time. Currently, I still haven’t seen her angry and ‘merajuk’. This is why she is able to make good friends easily anywhere.”
As for her second year of Food Science course in Monash University, she has to deal with two to three laboratory reports a week with assignments and tests.
“It's a hectic life,” she admits for juggling between school and Candy-Colours, the e-boutique which she manages.
“I still have to attend to the customers during tests and examinations although we don't upload new items (for the e-boutique),” she says.
Her typical day now is going to classes or settling business matters, and enjoy good food and clubbing while also handling assigments and reports.
If you want to judge her as an incompetent student, please hold it.
This premium school convent girl has got ten As for her SPM, and scored well for her A-level with a couple of As.
That is, despite the fact that she admit she slacked during her A-level times.
As we were getting up to move the interview location to her unit in a condominium, she stops by a sweet stall and bought some candies from the stall. That reminds me of her e-boutique, Candy-Colours.
Arriving at her unit, papers and laptops spreaded on the table. She brougth me to a small room which temporarily not occupied.
There stands the mannequin which she uses for displaying the clothes for her e-boutique.
“Before this, we model the clothes ourselves, taking headless shots with the clothes and accessories. But now, we have this mannequin to do the job,” she beamed.
“It cost me around RM50...bought it from a friend's mother,”she explains.
For her e-boutique, she gets supplies from her boyfriend's friends, local and overseas suppliers.
Asked how she started the business, she says that it was the attraction from the sudden popular trend, where girls start to sell 'stuffs' on blogs.
“The sales are actually pretty good, many things are sold out,and the things they sell are not expensive as well,”she points out.
The self-confessed shopaholic also admit doing this so that she can shop more for herself as well.
“ Because the feeling of buying nice stuff is so good!” she exclaims.
“It's like I'm shopping for myself, with more variety and i can buy in bulk, which is cheaper,” she explains.
The domain for the e-boutique is free, as they use free blog hosting service of Blogspot.
The items selling on the e-boutique are not expensive, ranging from RM15 to RM60. Items on the e-boutique includes tops, dresses, bags and accessories like satin sash.
Asked how they price each item, she answered, “Can I not reveal this? I'm scared my partner will kill me for that.” She laughed.
“But we do keep it as low as possible. We love to buy cheap and nice stuff,” she added.
Each e-boutique have their unique style and on her e-boutique web site, there is a chat box specifically meant for other e-boutiques to advertise and leave sales messages.
“I still buy things from other sites (e-boutique) sometimes,” says the e-shopping lover.
She chooses the products base on her perception on the items' attractiveness.
“I will choose something that I will buy for myself,”she says.
Based on her preference, she will choose items that are simple yet 'nice'.
“ I bring in casual stuff that is simple yet nice, not much of formal stuff...and I bring in party dresses like mini tubes (tube top), dresses and stuffs suitable for college students.” she points out.
She explained that she will choose plain colours as she persoanlyl prefer simplicity.
Enquired about the problems faced in the business, she says she had to deal with the post office always.
As her business depends a lot on delivering parcels of the boutique pieces, she face problems such as late delivery and at times face criticism from customers.
She also meet up with the customers to pass the items the customers ordered. But that's only within her area and areas near to the place where she lives.
She also fear that the stock can't be cleared or the items in demand are out of stock.
“My solution is to resell at a cheaper price, and try to stock in those which are strongly in demand, like some popular tops in a particualr colour,” she explains.
Currently, there are only a few pieces that are left in her room in Suriamas Condominium.
In fact, this weekend, along with her business partners, she will have an offline sales at 3K Inn Bazaar at Subang Jaya.
“We have to pay RM150 for the stall rental for two days. That's just for the stalls. We have to prepare everything else, like banners, price chart and etc.” she elaborates, “We got in more stock specially for the sales at the bazaar.”
“Well please do come and check it out!” she invites.
It is indeed motivational to see a girl who has created a part-time job for herself and satisfy her girly needs at the same time while studying to improve herself.
As I step away from this interview, I know she will be able to make her life successful with her hardwork and passion.
