Ming and Eddie Wang arrived from Taiwan in 1978, studied at New York's Fashion Institute of Technology, and took on contract knitting work while sharing a two-bedroom Queens apartment with another family. In 1986, they put Ming's name on a label of her own: she designed and knitted the line while Eddie carried it door to door to the buyers of Seventh Avenue.

What set the label apart still defines it. Each garment is made with a full-fashion technique — pattern pieces knitted individually to shape rather than cut from yardage — in specialized yarns that resist wrinkles, machine wash beautifully, and hold their line from suitcase to boardroom.

Four decades on, Ming Wang dresses the active woman who wants elegance without maintenance in an inclusive range from petite through plus. It remains the founding brand of the family company that grew around it — today's Meison, now led by the family's second generation.