Studio Joy Li

for JAVA Magazine, June, 2010

In modern relationship terminology, fashion is bad for us. Time after time it betrays us, and yet we keep going back to it. Even as we remain hopeful, we eventually learn not to put much faith in it.

Rightly so. By its very nature, fashion is an inconsistent and unpredictable partner. Sometimes the traits we initially found charming end up being plain annoying, and it stays around way too long. Other times, just when we think we're ready to settle down and make a long-term commitment, it comes through the door with a crappy new tattoo and an expensive habit and makes us wonder how we could have been so blind to its true nature. Oh fashion - "I don't know you anymore."

The truth is, fashion was always just too self-centered and mercenary to be trusted. How many of us have made the mistake of investing our hearts, only to find that the same pants we thought we understood like no other, will drop for just about anyone with a credit card or a cheap compliment? Fashion uses us and loses us...but still makes us want it.

To flip the (admittedly shaky) metaphor: The purpose of the fashion industry is to get us to stick around - to continue shelling out money in the desperate hope of not being left behind. In a partnership with fashion, any sense that we're in control is merely the result of mind games.

What's worse, and not at all metaphorical or funny, is that the fashion industry has a sad history of overlooking human rights abuses in favor of increased profits.

As you may have guessed, I am not the best choice for a fluff piece on "fashion." Not only am I cynical by nature, but...actually, "cynical by nature" pretty much does sum it up. Thankfully, I met someone related to the world of pret-a-porter with whom I couldn't agree more.

Joy Li, the designer behind Studio Joy Li on Stetson Drive in Scottsdale, has looked at the fashion industry from every angle in her 25-year career, and some of what she's seen has not been pretty. Along with her business partner, Jean Bartolomei, she has begun a design and manufacturing business that is meant to be the exception and perhaps eventually the rule - a partnership between consumer and fashion based upon mutual satisfaction and no guilt.

Studio Joy Li seeks to restore our faith in women's fashion. There is good reason to think they will succeed.

It would be easy to assume that Joy Li's success in the industry was a foregone conclusion. She's beautiful, articulate, self-assured and energetic. Though in her forties, she still has the figure that once inspired ready-to-wear mogul Liz Claiborne to make Joy THE shape of the Claiborne petit model in the 1980's ("I had to lay down in this stuff and they made a mold out of me…then they made dress forms out of the mold.") She has a degree in graphic design from Carnegie Mellon University. Isn't that enough?

"I was LUCKY!" she says more than once, when describing her circuitous rise to independence in the fashion business. And it was luck, both good and bad, along with her innate talents, which brought her to where she is today; bringing both practicality and a conscience to Studio Joy Li.

The first-born child of Chinese immigrant parents, Joy grew up in Buffalo, New York. "We didn't have toys." Instead, Joy expressed her creativity by drawing paper doll designs on the window panes. Still, the choice of a career in fashion was a non-starter as far her father was concerned. "My father always said that the fashion business was bad because it exploited Chinese labor," she says.

One stroke of luck was that Joy's father had been a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University. "I still couldn't take fashion, but since [her dad] had gone there, too, he didn't mind when I took Graphic Design because it was Carnegie Mellon." Though not fashion-oriented, this education gave Joy what she needed in the way of conceptual design fundamentals.

After university, Joy found graphic design work with a Fortune 500 company in Connecticut. One day she saw an in ad in the New York Times, looking for a petit fit model at Liz Claiborne in New York City. "I took the train into New York City and I got the job on the spot," remembers Joy.

Today, the Liz Claiborne company owns many other labels, such as Kenneth Cole, Kate Spade and Lucky Brand Jeans. Between the late 1970's and late 1980's, however, Ms. Claiborne herself was still in control and in the middle of the company's first major growth explosion. Joy had the luck of joining the company during this phase and the opportunity to learn from the master herself.

As a fit model, Joy was part of a small team which would fly to factories around the world where items for the Liz Claiborne brand were manufactured. Being the definition of what was then considered a size 6 (a 2 by modern standards), Joy would try on prototype clothing inside the factory. "Usually we'd put on the samples and then we'd go over the fit - Liz was always there - I'd say this is where it's a little snug or not quite right...then we'd be on our own until they were able to re-make the sample and call us back for another fitting. I always had a pager on me."

Often, Claiborne would be right beside Joy in the fitting room. "Liz would actually strip down and try on clothes right next to me...she was involved in everything...she really wanted to make sure that the quality was consistent. The goal was for all the clothes to fit exactly the same, no matter where in the world they were manufactured."

One challenge for Joy during this time in her life was that she needed to maintain a consistent body shape throughout the year. "It was a challenge because when I started, I was lifting weights...and then they told me that my arms were starting to get too big...also, on some of these trips maybe I'd get sick and so I'd maybe lose a little weight…"

This was clearly a pivotal and formative period for Joy, and one that she remembers with reverence. "I wasn't making much money, but I was living high and learning about the business," she recalls. "...I wanted to get in to fashion design so bad, but I hadn't gone to school for it. Usually that meant you'd have to start as a receptionist or something and try to work your way up." Joy's foot in the door was undoubtedly more fun than that.

Within two years, Joy had transitioned from model to designer when she accepted a role at Claiborne competitor Carol Little. Other jobs followed, including ones at Guess and Newport Blue Men's.

One incident during this period brought Joy back to Earth and served to mature her thinking as regards fashion and its place in our lives. A family emergency called her briefly to China, where the contrast between the lives of the coastal U.S. fashion set and those of the average Chinese citizen could not have been more pronounced. While frivolous fashions may have artistic significance, and may be fun, Joy started thinking more about clothing that was easy to live in.

In 2001, Joy relocated to the Valley, where she decided the time and place were right to strike out and do things her own way. Two tenets of Joy's "way" were specific corrections in the path she had watched the fashion business take over the course of her career.

The first of these was that the core of Joy's collection would be fundamentals of women's clothing that were meant to be kept for several seasons instead of tossed after only one. These would employ state of the art fabrics that kept their shape and resisted wear. Designed with equal emphasis to form as well as function, the pants, skirts, shirts and dresses in the Fundamentals line come in core colors of black, white and grey and can be mixed and matched with anything else in a woman's wardrobe.

Other lines, while more to the fore stylistically, still employ the ethos of wearability and matchability. Joy describes the brand as "for the woman going from the gym to the office or for the jet-setter who believes that Europe is possible with a single carryon."

The second intentional divergence from what many consider the fashion business mainstream is Studio Joy Li's commitment to fair treatment of the people who make the clothing that bears her brand. All the clothing in every Joy Li line is manufactured in the United States, with Joy and business partner Jean Bartolomei making frequent visits to the factories.

Though Joy doesn't want to isolate any of her past employers as particularly deserving of scorn, she has vivid memories of working conditions that repulsed her. "I'm talking women who had ropes tied to their arms so they had to pull enormous, heavy boxes across the floor…" The words of Joy's father about the exploitation inherent in the fashion business were given vivid detail. "I've quit jobs because of what I saw," she says.

Was there anywhere in the world where it was particularly prevalent?

"In every country in Asia."

Studio Joy Li is located in the Mix group of shops on Stetson Drive in Scottsdale's "SouthBridge District." There, all of Joy's current lines are on display in a showroom that is crisp, airy and bright. Joy encourages women to give her feedback and become real fans. American labor and small runs of fine fabrics mean that clothing from Studio Joy Li is not priced to compete with J.C. Penny; but it is more than reasonable considering the craftsmanship and exclusivity of the line. Prices typically range from tops in the $60's to outerwear in the high $400's.

There are, however, exceptions if you're among the Studio Joy Li in-crowd. "We hold a twice-a-year sample sale. I want to keep it fresh, so we'll have a box where anything in it is $20 and another where everything is $40 and so on."

And the future? "I definitely want to expand the size range. Right now it would be too expensive to offer more sizes than we do." Joy also sees philanthropy and sponsorship in the brand's future, but first things first.

There are a couple of ways to keep current with Studio Joy Li. The best is to stop by the shop at 7144 E. Stetson Drive, Suite 100 in Scottsdale. She also has a Twitter feed, which is studiojoyli, or you can visit the website at JoyLi.net.

(Space) Rocks In Her Head

For Java Magazine,

February, 2010 - On newststands now!

You may be surprised to know that the top of the world is a cluttered office at ASU's main campus. Behind a desk there sits the stunningly beautiful Professor Meenakshi Wadhwa, Director of ASU's Center for Meteorite Studies. Not content with merely being a renowned scientist in the field of cosmochemistry, (because, honestly, who couldn't do that?), this PhD from Punjab is also an avid hiker, triathlete, pilot and potential astronaut. She's doing what she loves, and having a great time doing it - on top of the world, as they say. Did I mention the stunningly beautiful part? Well, it bears repeating.

Sorry guys (and girls), she's taken.

Born and raised in India, Mini (her favored nickname) was not the typical young Indian girl. In a culture that generally expects different things from its daughters than from its sons, she credits her parents for keeping her free to set her own path. "My father was always very progressive and my family never imposed any limitations on me. A lot of girls in India grow up with the pressure to get married as soon as they can."

"IF they go on to higher education at all, it's with the idea that it will just help them get a better match when they do get married. More often, they just learn how to cook and how to clean. I didn't even learn to cook until I attended graduate school here in the states."

How is she now? "I'm pretty good!"

Professor Wadhwa is by no means boastful, but she's not self-effacing, either. When our conversation gets to how she spends her leisure time, tucked between running and seeing bands, she casually mentions "I just got my pilots license." It's clear she didn't want to draw attention to it, but when I do a double-take, she admits her enthusiasm. "Yeah, I've wanted to do that for a long time… it was very cool!"

Perhaps she's accustomed to being exceptional, but she bears herself with an easy assuredness and lack of affectation. "Cool" seems to be how she describes the things that please her the most.

Her path to ASU began with a youthful interest in rocks and the physical world, but she says she wasn't one of those people who knew what they wanted to do from an early age. "I went into geology not fully appreciating what it was all about, really. I knew that it required a lot of field work and I liked the idea of being outdoors and basically doing something in the physical sciences."

It was early on, however, that she realized she'd chosen an untraditional pursuit. "...so I went to the university to sort of talk to the professors and look into it, and there wasn't a single woman faculty member; and even today it's a very small minority of departments of geology in India that will have faculty that are women."

Though she won't describe it as a struggle, she did have some convincing to do. "They were not very encouraging. The professors would say 'no no, it's not a field for women. You have to go on these long field trips and trudge around a lot…' They didn't think I could do it. I just said, 'wait a minute, I'm pretty sure I CAN do it.' "

How much of a motivation was proving them wrong? She laughs. "Well their attitude kind of goaded me on, but that was really secondary," she says. "I mean, at that age (17) you're still trying to prove yourself, but I KNEW I could do it just as well as anyone else, and I wanted the chance to actually do the work, that's all. In the end I was first in my class, so I kinda did o.k., I think." Point proven.

In deference to her father, Mini applied for a potentially lucrative position with the Indian oil and natural gas commission just after graduation and got it! This meant financial security, relative prestige and, since she was so young, the likelihood of even higher promotion in the future. Besides which, and not unimportantly as far as her family was concerned, she could still live in India. By any traditional standard, accepting the position was an easy choice.

Mini Wadhwa, as you may have already gathered, is not about easy choices.

"At the same time, I'd applied to grad school here [the U.S.] and been accepted here, too," she explains. "The job in India was just not where my heart was. If I'd taken it I probably would have left anyway...it's not what I wanted to do."

And so she came to Washington University in St. Louis for graduate work in geology - basically the study of physical Earth. One fateful day, however, a professor allowed her to examine a piece of a Martian meteorite that had been discovered. The lightbulb went off that she could apply all of her training not only to Earth, but to the arguably far cooler entire solar system as well! The die was cast, the seed was sewn, insert your own cliche here because I'm out.

Since then, she has done field work in Antarctica, been Visiting Scholar at the University of Chicago, Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Illinois, and Curator at the Field Museum, among other positions and appointments. Some of her awards and honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Wings WorldQuest Air and Space Award, and the Meteoritical Society's Nier Prize - among others.

If you look up at the right time, you probably won't see it, but somewhere up there is an asteroid named in her honor as well - 8356 Wadhwa.

She also got married - to another geologist whom she first met in Hawaii, fresh from her Antarctic stint.

Doesn't that mean she never really gets too far away from work? "Yeah, well, maybe, but we love our work! Also, there's a lot about his work that I don't know and vice versa, so it's always interesting still." Does that sound ideal? Maybe it is. Eleven years suggests something's working here.

"I have absolutely no tips whatsoever on balancing personal and professional time...I'm a big believer in doing the most that you can every single day and having fun with it," she says. Still, she's avoided burnout by getting outdoors. She hikes, goes to concerts and has become, to even HER surprise, a triathlete. "I was an outdoorsy kid, but I never did any of the three sports before really. I got to know people here and they were getting into it and I thought, 'why is it that I can't get into that?' " Why not, indeed?

[One of over 1,500 meteorite samples which comprise the collection of the Center for Meteorite Studies at Arizona State University's School of Earth and Space Exploration]

Drawn To ASU

The Center for Meteorite Studies has been at ASU since 1960, when the university had the foresight to purchase the collection of Arizona resident and avid meteorite collector Harvey Nininger. A "gentleman" scientist who also operated a museum at northern Arizona's Meteor Crater, Nininger virtually established the field of meteoritics in the US, according to Wadhwa. A portion of the collection had already been sold to the British Museum and ASU had to scramble to get the rest.

Today, the center holds the largest research collection of meteorite samples in the world, and the fifth or sixth largest collection even considering those held by museums.

In 2006, ASU incorporated the center into its newly-formed School for Earth and Space Exploration, a multi-disciplinary school, encompassing everything from meteoritics to engineering, geology to astrophysics. It was the attraction of building this dynamic new school from the foundation that lured Mini and her husband (also on the faculty) to Tempe.

Though very active following the lunar missions of the early 1970's which brought back moon rocks for examination, the center itself was still not widely known, despite having such a significant collection. Part of Prof Wadhwa's mission is to change all of that.

"The center really is a kind of unique resource," she says, "so we've been trying to rejuvenate interest in our samples and try to make them more available in the science community as well as to the general public. And now there are plans for the school to have a new building and a big component will be exhibit and interactive space, and the meteorite collection will be a big part of that."

The outreach extends into the local community as well. "We have samples that we take to schools to try to get kids fascinated with this stuff. Plus there's a lot of people who don't know we're here." Probably most people don't, actually.

Like the rest of the faculty, Wadhwa had to take a furlough earlier this year to help make up for budget cutbacks brought on by the recession. In addition, she says they lost the equivalent of at least one and possibly two positions this year.

Might there be a well-endowed benefactor out there who just needs to be made aware of the school?

"That's why I'm talking to you."

Mini Wadhwa, you sweet-talker, you! Oh. Yes, publicity. Yes, I see. I'll certainly do what I can.

As full as Wadhwa's life may seem at the moment, it's about to get even fuller.

After a career spent largely studying Martian soil that has found its way to Earth by natural means, Wadhwa would like to go and get some for a change. She is principal investigator for a Discovery Class mission to Mars, which aims to collect Martian atmosphere and dust samples and return them to Earth for study. "It'll be a big time commitment but I'm really excited about it because Martian samples will mean a lot to different scientists around the world."

"Right now, we can only be 99 percent sure that what we think are Martian meteorites are actually from Mars," she explains. Part of the SCIM (Sample Collection for the Investigation of Mars) mission would be to give us samples that we can be 100 percent certain of for comparison. Further experiments on the samples would seek to answer questions about the evolution of Mars, the solar system and the Earth itself. NASA will decide next year whether or not SCIM is included in its next mission.

Assuming the mission does go through and is successful, Wadhwa and her team at ASU would be first up to receive the fruits of their labors. "We'll have six months after the samples get back to do a subset of experiments on them. The idea is to try and get the most science out of the sample, so the last thing we'd want to do is hoard them. It's impossible to have our small group of individuals do all the research that needs to be done, so we limit ourselves to just what we think we'd be best at and then make the samples available to others."

Having Wadhwa as "principal investigator" on this project will certainly raise her profile, as well as that of the ASU School of Earth and Space Exploration. "Part of the draw of being in this unique environment is that you have all of the different parts together at this one school. The goal is to prepare the next generation of space scientists, so bringing NASA projects here is definitely something we want to do as much as possible."

And what does the future hold for this award-winning and amply accredited professor?

"Twenty years from now I hope we'll have actual samples back not only from Mars, but from some of the other planets in the solar system. I want to be involved in some of these missions."

JAVA: And if there's a manned mission…?

Wadhwa: Oh...

Throughout our long and pleasant conversation, Professor Wadhwa was always sure-footed. She's been interviewed a lot and is justifiably confident of her material. It was intriguing, therefore, when she hesitated slightly at this question.

Wadhwa: Oh...GOD yes, absolutely!

JAVA: Is that why you're keeping in such good shape?

Wadhwa: Well...you know…who knows...

JAVA: Is that actually what's in the back of your mind when you're doing triathlon - so that you can still pass the astronaut exam when you're sixty?

Wadhwa: Ha ha ha ha...of course not...I mean, of course SO! That's what I meant to say [she is now officially blushing.] Yeah, I would LOVE to have been an astronaut. That would have been very cool!

Lest we think that her head is now in the clouds, she takes pains to explain that it is not.

"At the same time, there's so much cool stuff for me to do...and the important thing is to have fun at what you're doing at the present time. You don't want to just sort of make do and bide your time while you're thinking about some really really long term sort of plan that you're aiming towards..." Yeah yeah yeah, the common term for those things is "dreams," Professor. I get the impression that she's trying to convince herself as much as me.

She needn't worry.

Who among us would ever accuse Mini Wadhwa of simply biding her time?

See more pictures of the esteemed professor at my Flickr page.