Q. As a child, what did you dream of becoming?

A. At the earliest age I was attracted to painting and drawing – almost by instinct. My family told me that I was drawing and creating artwork as early as three.  And I have distinct memories of my earliest school–they had a wall where they would post student creations.  I can remember being 6 years old and making paintings just so I could put them up on ‘The Wall.”

Q. How did it change as you grew older?

A. As I grew older, I came to appreciate more deeply the ability I had to transmit the world that I saw in my head – including impressions of colors, the shape of feelings, and the effect of moods – into works of art that I could share with others.  Looking back, I can see that there was a joy in being able to interpret things through art and then communicate directly with others through the paintings and drawings I made.

Q. When did you realize you were going to become a designer?

A. I am not unique, I think, in that as a teenager, I became more aware of fashion and of self-expression through how one dressed, or styled their “persona,” if you will. For me, fashion has always been an artistic act of making choices and experimentation. By the time I was in high school, I was thinking more about design – fashion design particularly – as a vocational pursuit.

Q. With all the possible categories to choose from in the field of design, why did you pick footwear?

A. This was part effort and part coincidence.  Women’s high heels have always intrigued me.  By how they seem to be the platform on which she stages all other fashion choices.  And how they seem to make her instantly feel confident, or sexy, or flirty, or powerful, or whatever she feels at any changing moment. At the time of my Masters in England, I met a fellow Taiwanese native by chance whose family business was shoe manufacturing. I began to work with him on his projects and this was really the beginning of my full awakening to designing shoes.

Q. Well, the shoes in your collections are beyond anything I can imagine. What inspires you?

A. It makes me smile when I am asked this question, because I am often jealous when I hear other designers give a very ready answer. I know that some designers devise a concept first, and then create to fulfill different aspects of the design idea.  For me, I am more inconsistent, but in a way that seems to work for me.  I can get the inspiration for a design from anywhere and anything.  It could be artistic or commercial.  It may be music, or even just over heard conversation in a cafe.

Q. Did anything in particular inspire your latest collection?

A. My current collection, The Voodoo Circus, is inspired by everything from Japanese amine to Hollywood glamour.  I am drawn to what I perceive as beautiful and that is a visceral and completely individual response.  I am fond of saying that “beauty is an elegant interpretation of the past.”  With the current collection, I wanted to create what was both extroverted and elegant at the same time, playful but yet clearly sexy.  Mixed medias that combined colors, textures, and materials in ways that was both classically feminine but yet reflected what I see as the modern tendency to stand out from the crowd and be noticed.

Q. Your collections are very intricate and detailed. How long is the entire creative process for one of your magnificent shoes from start to finish?

A. The design process for me is forever ongoing.  When I find inspiration, I create a rendering and I put it in my dossier.  I do not force myself to deliberately DESIGN.  When I am not designing, my work is often about looking at what I have rendered and seeing how or if any of the designs relate to each other. I select what appears most interesting to me, and I take these drawing to my creative team and we discuss the work together in terms how viable a particular design is in terms of aesthetic, commercial market, actual wear ability in terms of comfort and style together. It is about 6 to 8 months from concept to delivery of shoes to us for availability in retail outlets and other points of sale.

Q. What is the biggest challenge of being a shoe designer?

A. Because I am currently only designing women’s shoes [though I am developing a concept for a men's collection which is really exciting me], I think that it is essential to listen to what women have to say!  I want to design shoes that women will want to wear.  Sometimes this can extend the product development stage, but I make the time for such input.  If I design a shoe that no one will buy, or WORSE – that is uncomfortable or impractical, then I would be very discouraged, and feel I have failed.

Q. If you could design a shoe for one person to wear, who would it be?

A. This one is easy.  Lady Gaga! Whether you love her or you don’t, it doesn’t matter.  She creates interest and fashion wherever she goes.  I don’t see this as interfering with her music, as some critics I have read have urged, but rather, I see her interpreting the time and place of the world we live in to give us images and songs to contemplate.  She’s always a moving target – changing, and giving us something new.

Q. What would a “Lady Gaga by Zack Lo” shoe look like?

A. I have no idea what a Gaga-esque Zack Lo Shoe would look like.  Only that it would be unique to her!  She too has a great creative team, I hear, and they talk over things much the way my team does.  I would love to be part of collaboration with her folks on one of her projects and create something just for her for that moment – sort of a ZL gift to her talents and vision.

Q. Lady Gaga is a huge trendsetter. Do you follow the latest trends?

A. I am not overly influenced by “trendsetting.”  Sometimes I feel that as soon as something is identified as such is too easy to reject it as passé or temporary!  For me, my love of vintage luxury goods keeps me grounded in shapes, styles and materials that have withstood the test to time, and the ups and downs of popular taste.  How I can reinvent thing in an altogether new manner, to appear fresh and fashionable–that is key.

Q. Designers also meet a lot of intriguing people. If you had the opportunity to meet one person, who would it be?

A. Hmmmmm. One person, who I think was a brilliant designer in her own right, but who is not really a designer per se, is the all-amazing Iris Apfel.  She had impeccable taste, and she was daring.  I admire her assertive choices – to make a belt out of an antique tribal headdress; to dress at the verge of costume; to throw away convention and be completely compelling in what she wore.  I can only imagine that when she walked into any room – much like Lady Gaga, she commanded everyone’s attention.

Q. How do you want people to remember your name in one word?

A. Original

And original you are! Thank you, Zack Lo, for bringing playfulness and excitement into the shoe world!

Interview by: Natasha Vianna

Tags: artwork, beautiful, cafe, child painting, clothes, collection, colors, concept, confident, creative shoes, designer, drawing, dreams, dressed, england, family, Fashion, flirty, footwear, glamour, heels, hollywood, imagination, impressions, inspiration, Label Girl Hype, lady gaga, luxury, market, natasha vianna, original, outlet, powerful, retail, ringmaster, sexy, shoes, taiwanese, trendsetting, vintage, voodoo circus, women, zack lo

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