'Vanngo's meteoric climb is all the more impressive considering his humble beginnings in Vietnam.
Worried about the country's instability, his single mother used her savings to send him to America when he was a child. With his brother and one of his sisters, Vanngo boarded a boat to Cambodia and then to Thailand. There the young siblings slept on the floor in a refugee camp for three years. Eventually, they ended up in Canada, where Vanngo attended school during the day and cleaned office buildings at night. In his high school library, the burgeoning painter pored over fashion magazines, obsessing over the ascendancy of glamorous late-'90s supermodels and their go-to makeup pro, Kevyn Aucoin. Eventually, Vanngo established himself as Toronto's premier editorial artist. But breaking into the New York fashion world meant enduring years of rejection.
"Anything was better than the way we started out" he says, "so I was never afraid to try. I had nothing to lose." '
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Many thanks to @instylemagazine @laurabrown99 @kahlanabarfield and #SuzanneZuckerman for this amazing feature in your September issue ❤️❤️❤️❤️
