Tap This

Who decides to get sexy on a Wednesday night? TAP-SF or the Taiwanese American Professionals of San Francisco does! In collaboration with Leyina Chen Productions, TAP-SF presented a night of showcasing designs from Swati Couture, Monique Zhang, and Seventy Two Changes w/Cocoa Jeans. The setting was in the very appropriate Zen Lounge in Mountain View that provided the just right ambiance for the event – it’s an Asian lounge showing well.. Asian clothes.

This event was all made possible by Leyina Chen and she is coming to the fashion industry with 10+ years of event planning experience. She has planned and coordinated corporate parties, fundraisers, social mixers, and cultural events for campus associations, professional groups, non-profit organizations, and for high-tech companies in the Northern California.

Recently Leyina Chen decided to start her own fashion production LEYINA CHEN & PRODUCTIONS, which is a San Francisco/ Silicon Valley Hot Spot for fashion models, designers, photographers, and retail clothing owners.  Mission is to produce state of the art fashion shows to show case the Bay Area’s most talented women and menswear designer collections, and to donate proceeds to the local community based organizations.

So for her debut, in September, Leyina Chen was able to fuse her love for fashion and for the Taiwanese and Asian American community, and produced her very first fashion show at the TAPpy Hour: A Night of Fashion at the Zen Lounge with over 240 guests attended the event!

The purpose of this fashion event was to recognize and support the Asian Americans professionals in the fashion industry.  According to New Models, Asians represents only 3% of the models in the US (Reference http://www.newmodels.com/race.html). She hopes that this number will grow as we continue to support and recognize the Asian American professionals in the fashion industry.

— Leyina Chen

I was able to quickly speak to Swati Kapoor to get a better understanding behind her vision and creativity. Her ‘indowestern’ style is a blend that she personally grew up with back at home and upon coming to the states has beautifully combined them into what we see today as Swati Couture.

In SWATI Couture, I envision each woman as an Apsara, a celestial nymph, beautiful, supernatural woman of great beauty, elegance and spirit — a celebrity in her own right, whether they are Indian, or not

— Swati Kapoor

Upon my arrival, photographers were abundant. Model:Photographer ratio, maybe 1:1. So I decided not to really cover the fashion show portion of it. So I took pictures of photographers taking pictures of models (we fotogs need love too). I also then nabbed a few models for kicks and did some shotgun photo shoots because no one said I couldn’t. I shot mainly Elizabeth L. just because of sheer luck and she was funny

The fashion show overall displayed a diverse set of designers as well as models. It was fast paced, I only wish it could have been a little slower so I could digest all of the designs – or it could just be me being slow. I’ve attached some of the pictures – hope you enjoy and good job TAP-SF for a great event.