From reading about Yeohlee Teng, you get the impression that she’ll be quite austere, a deep thinker wedded to the intellectual process of her craft. After all, exhibitions of her work have been put on at well-respected museums such as the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and the V&A in London, so it seems likely that the eternal conundrum of whether or not fashion constitutes art will come up fairly quickly in conversation. Rather surprisingly, however, Yeohlee prefers to get on with the practical matter of creating clothes and leave the academic debate to others.

‘It’s tricky,’ she says bluntly. ‘Because of the various contexts my clothes have been shown in, there is an assumption on many people’s part that I view my work as art. But I view my work as design: it has a function to it. But on the other hand, what is art, anyway? One person’s art is someone else’s something or other. I have never really thought about that question because it doesn’t seem important to me. It’s not something that I am well versed in enough to have a definitive dialogue about it. I appreciate that it’s important to a lot of people who know a heck of a lot more about the subject than I do, but I don’t engage in it.’

Instead, Yeohlee engages with other creative people whose work she admires or finds inspirational. Fall 2004, for example, comprised direct collaborations with the likes of product designer Ayse Birsel to create a collection directly related to the personality and style of that particular participant. ‘I find it more interesting and stimulating to meet the challenges and needs of my peers,’ Yeohlee explains. ‘It is more immediate and real than designing a collection on models and presenting it in a traditional runway format, something I have already done many times over.’

That’s no understatement. Yeohlee founded her own house in New York back in 1981 after leaving her native Malaysia to study at Parsons. Since then she has seemingly been both within and without of the fashion world, promoting her ideal of ‘seasonless’ collections and the concept of the ‘urban nomad’ while gaining the respect of the fashion world elite.

‘Seasonless’ is certainly an idea that is close to Yeohlee’s heart, and she remains sceptical of some of the inbuilt laws of the fashion industry. ‘I understand why people have to work so far in advance, fashion is a global economy these days,’ she explains. ‘But I think things could be different and that things could change. It will probably be an organic movement though, taking the long way of getting there.’

In the meantime, she simply does what she can to eschew seasonal or trend based collections. For Yeohlee, fashion should not be about simply replacing your entire wardrobe. ‘In our society, among the people that I know, very few people actually need more clothes,’ she says firmly. ‘I’m very much for replacing key items in your wardrobe and not going out and shopping like mad. I ask questions: What do I need? What do my clients need? What do my friends need?’

As such, she decided upon a capsule wardrobe which she presents from collection to collection. And while each collection is radically different in terms of fabrics and colors, the core pieces have remained the same. The most recent addition was a vest. As Yeohlee puts it: ‘layering really works these days.’

And how does she approach the design process itself? For Yeohlee, it’s all a question of fabric. ‘The fabrics determine how the clothes are going to hang and drape,’ Yeohlee explains. ‘I build a story as I source them and develop a color palette as I go along. Generally there is a specific feeling or mood to each collection that can be tied to a narrative or an inspiration.’

‘But I’m not religious about how I practice what I do. I try different things that lead to different results,’ she adds happily. ‘For spring 2004, for example, I got this really expensive fabric with crystal borders and I used every scrap of the fabric. I constructed the garments by tearing the fabrics into strips. It was an unusual treatment of a fabric used in a couture way and the clothes were made with the minimum of fuss and labor. It was totally concept and I like those pieces very much.’

Yeohlee’s is a heady mix of absolute functionality and the highest of high concepts. ‘The most efficient design/garment/item is the sarong,’ she insists. ‘It’s one piece of fabric and you have no waste at all. I’ve tried to get the sarong into the boardroom. It hasn’t happened yet, but I haven’t given up.’ You sense that she wouldn’t even dream of it.