Derek Lam spent afternoons at his grandparent’s garment factory in San Francisco’s Chinatown. He used to adore the wedding gowns that were made there.
Today, according to Wikipedia, he is known for his own line of fashion featuring very feminine designs including raw silk sheath dresses with plunging necklines.
Lam graduated from St. Ignatius College Preparatory in San Francisco before moving to New York to study fashion at the Parsons School for Design. His parents had immersed him in culture at a younger age with regular trips to the Asian Art Museum and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
“Finding that space between what we desire and what we need—that’s where I try to focus my work,” Lam told 7 x 7.
One of his first interns was fellow San Francisco Alexander Wang. 
Like Lam, Wang is known for “elevating the everyday” and playing with contrasts. He attended high school at San Francisco’s Drew and among his classmates were two other names in the fashion world, Samantha Traina, the fashion editor of C Magazine; Vanessa, a contributing fashion editor at T; and Victoria, who worked with Wang on his debut runway show in 2007.
Today Wang is making a name for himself as creative director at Balenciaga.
You can read a lot more about these San Francisco fashion icons in 7 x 7.