"There's so much going on in life, and it's all going so fast. Every season is still kind of like the beginning because I'm constantly having to have new ideas. But I'm doing what I love."

Tam is sporting her signature red lipstick, her middle-parted glossy black hair flowing loose. She's wearing a red-patterned shift dress (one of her own designs) and chunky 1970s-style heels.

It's not the first time I've met Tam. Over the past year, we've had dinner together at a mutual friend's house in Pok Fu Lam and cooed over the dresses at the inaugural fundraising gala dinner by amfAR, the Foundation for Aids Research, at Shaw Studios, in Clear Water Bay. She showed me around her New York studio (Tam started her career in the Big Apple), and - at ABC Kitchen, also part of chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten's stable - she gave me tips for finding the best flea markets in the city.

Tam doesn't have the cold, detached exterior we have come to expect from fashion designers. Instead, she's smiley and a little bit dreamy, but she talks fast and with enthusiasm. I've heard her described as being "pure" and, after meeting her, I can understand why.

When you talk to others in the industry, it's clear that many admire Tam for her uncompromising, modern take on Chinese aesthetics and her longevity in a fickle industry. Tam's East-West cultural mishmash can still surprise on the runway.

Vivienne Tam the brand was again thrust into the limelight in Hong Kong last month, when the government announced a HK$200 million fund for nurturing home-grown fashion talent.

"We need - and we could have - another Vivienne Tam," said textiles and garment sector lawmaker Felix Chung Kwok-pan.

It was the first time the government had allocated a set sum for the fashion industry in the annual budget.

"I thought it was really exciting news and I'm so happy for Hong Kong's creative and fashion industries and students," said Tam, when we met after Art Basel earlier this month. "I'm glad [the government is] now paying so much attention."

But, she warned, money alone is not enough.

"Funding allows more opportunity for designers but they also need help in [learning] how to do business. They need to [be able to] meet buyers, the press and consumers," she added. "Getting feedback - it's all a learning process. Funding and overseas scholarships are great, but it's just one part [of the process]."

Tam understands the challenges of the Hong Kong fashion scene only too well; after all, she had to move halfway around the world to make her name in the city in which she grew up.

"New York is a place where you can be who you are," says Tam of her adopted home. "That's how I started. It was because of America, because of New York. If you do good work [there], people recognise you. They just come to you, it's incredible. But I grew up in Hong Kong, so this East-meets-West thing is who I am - and New York gave me the freedom to be who I am."

The Big Apple has been Tam's base for more than two decades, but she visits Hong Kong often, to design, for meetings and for events such as Art Basel. In 2012, she revealed her art-deco Designer Suite at Hotel Icon, in Tsim Sha Tsui.

Other local collaborations have been with the Mandarin Oriental and Disneyland (she designed the Lunar New Year costumes for Mickey and Minnie Mouse in 2008), and Tam created the first "designer digital clutch", making a fashion accessory out of a Hewlett-Packard notebook computer.

Today, of course, the fashion industry is looking East. But decades ago, Tam remembers, Hong Kong was thought of only as a manufacturing base, not somewhere that could produce designers.

"Everybody was telling me, 'If you're doing something about your own culture, who is going to buy from you?'" she laughs. "Basically they said, 'There's no business model.' I always questioned why everyone wanted only Western things."

Tam stubbornly continued referencing her own culture. She remembers finding inspiration during trips to the mainland in the late 70s and 80s.

"All the local brands, and even bicycles and shop names, were so poetic," she says. "I used to question all the time why we were all only looking to Western brands."

As geopolitics have moved in favour of China and, indeed, Asia over the past 10 years, the region's aesthetics have been revisited. The culture of "China cheap" has been replaced by a search for "China chic", and Tam has led the way.

"I'm passionate about my own culture," she says. "So why shouldn't I use it as inspiration? It's so amazing and we have all those beautiful objects and art."

Whether it's incorporating the Silk Road, ancient Chinese cave art or Ming vases into her collections, Tam's aim is to give classic elements a contemporary twist rather than attempting to be super edgy.

Tam embraced all the embellishment of late 17th-century European Chinoiserie in her latest collection, which debuted at New York Fashion Week last month. High ruffled necklines and brocade patterns had Victorian influences while sheer blouses and dresses evoked serious sex appeal. Modern mesh was paired with baroque elements and, as always, stunning embroideries and artful prints adorned her elegant finale pieces.

While employing new technologies and using sportswear fabrics with traditional embroidery or motifs are now defining elements of her style, it is the consistency of her East-West hybrid designs that makes Tam so enduring.

Who can forget the controversial Mao collection she sent onto a New York catwalk 20 years ago?

Teaming up with artist Zhang Hongtu, Tam presented dresses covered in an Andy Warhol-esque print of Mao Zedong, with a bee on his nose or his hair in pigtails. The Chinese were outraged but the Americans thought it clever, quirky and daring.

Those outfits will be part of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art's "China: Through the Looking Glass" exhibition, which will run from May 7 to August 16.

That collection, and the attention it garnered, was a milestone for Tam, giving her artistic clout. Since then her work has been displayed at the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Victoria & Albert Museum, in London, as well as the Andy Warhol Museum, in Pittsburg, in the US.

For autumn-winter 2013, Tam again veered into politics, presenting outfits featuring a graphic, socialist-style Barack Obama print with QR codes.

Tam's love affair with China might be her signature but critics have complained that she is pushing the point of Chinese style too hard. Tam recognises that there is "constantly this challenge" of balancing the expectations of different markets with her desire to stay true to herself. But, she says, the pressure to produce more commercial, simplified and non-culturally specific pieces has been there from the start.

"I told myself I'm not going to change my identity, or dilute it," she says, quietly.

Tam's roots can be traced back to Guangzhou, where she was born. Her father came from a family of landlords who would have been among those left vulnerable when the Communist Party came to power in 1949. When Tam was three years old, the family moved to Hong Kong.

In her book , she talks about crossing the border into Hong Kong from Macau. In the one photo of her that remains from that time, Tam is seen "with a crew cut and wearing a fancy dress, with a Peter Pan collar". "The look was a little strange, but I really love this image - half little boy, half little girl. It's very strong. This is where my life started," she writes in the book. "A life in China, and then a life in Hong Kong; a life in the East, and then one in the West. A party dress and a crew cut, always crossing borders."

At school in Hong Kong, Tam grew her hair and would braid and style it using anything from "ribbons or coloured bands to hairpins". "I'd add things onto pencil cases and make embroideries onto little bags and headbands," she says. "I just liked to decorate everything differently from the other girls."

Tam started making her own clothes when she was about 10 years old; her mother would buy fabric from the market and the pair would create designs together.

"I loved the feeling of making my own clothes; we would make them for Chinese New Year," she recalls. "We didn't have money when I was growing up. We had to make our own clothes out of scrap material. Each [piece we made] was the only one in the world. It was more special than buying something expensive."

Tam graduated from Polytechnic University's first ever fashion design course. But it was her inaugural visit to the United States, in the early 80s, that changed everything. She landed in Texas and then travelled up to New York, where she undertook an internship with the Hong Kong Trade Development Council.

Afterwards, she headed back to Hong Kong.

"Nothing was happening for me back home," she says. "I felt Hong Kong wasn't the place for me."

Tam returned to New York, armed with about 20 of her creations.

"And then came the cold-calling and trying to sell to department stores, standing in lines in a cold November to be seen by the buyers," she recalls, with a smile.

Her modern, Asian-influenced aesthetic was new to the US market and department store Henri Bendel became her first stockist. But it wasn't plain sailing.

"I remember crying one time," says Tam. "I was staying at the cheapest hotel, had no money, nothing, and then a friend suggested I do this trade fair."

She borrowed money to rent a small booth, but had to steal the white sheets from her hotel room to decorate it. That first collection featured pieces "inspired by Chinese workwear"; simple items printed with Chinese characters in straightforward fabrics (because she couldn't afford expensive ones).

The collection was a success and more accounts followed. Slowly, Tam became an advocate of Chinese style in the US.

When was published, in 2000, Tam says, "I felt, like, 'Wow - I've made it.'"

Today, as many designers edge towards higher prices, Tam is adamant that her clothes remain affordable. She gets a kick out of seeing more, not fewer, people wearing her designs.

"Why make it so expensive when it's just not necessary?" she quips.

While living in New York, Tam has witnessed the rise of other Asian-American designers, such as Alexander Wang, Phillip Lim and Jason Wu. Their cool, urban appeal has little in common with the romance, playfulness and traditional references seen in her work but she is fully in support of the new generation.

"I think they deliver beautiful work," she says. "They all have individual identities and this is why it's successful."

An exploration of Tam's designs inevitably leads one back to Hong Kong - today, a global fashion retail centre. This month, British designer and former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham revealed to the that her second store will be located here. Local department stores Lane Crawford and I.T are building a global reputation to rival that of Selfridges and Barneys. Meanwhile, luxury brands Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Chanel have taken up residence in some of the city's most expensive real estate. In terms of sales, such brands often report Hong Kong to be one of their top five performing cities globally.

Despite all this, home-grown design talent has struggled to attain international acclaim. The pressure is on to make the HK$200 million count.

Rent is a major issue, with independent labels paying more than HK$30,000 a month for a 280 sq ft retail space in Sheung Wan. And as the global fashion industry becomes increasingly crowded, competition is fierce.

"I remember when there were just a few shows during [New York] Fashion Week. Now there are 10 times more than when I started," Tam says.

While the Hong Kong Trade and Development Council holds a fashion week here twice a year, Tam says, "They should really separate the fashion events. Currently, [fashion week] focuses too much on manufacturing and not enough on the creative part of fashion."

Despite these challenges, in her typically pure, positive manner, Tam has encouraging words for local talent: "Make sure what you're designing is making women beautiful."

Suddenly getting serious, and looking me dead in the eyes, she adds, "Your message has to be strong, and have your own identity. Your work has to be from your own self. It has to have a soul."