"There was a receptive audience waiting for Tam's designs in the early 1980s. She visited buyers at stores like Henri Bendel on the days when they looked at work by new designers, carrying her sample pieces stuffed in a duffel bag, and she also rented a space at the International Fashion Boutique Show that resulted in $100,000 worth of orders. She found a work space on West 38th Street, but her clothes were made in Hong Kong, an international epicenter for garment manufacturing. Her first lines had an avant-garde bent, made from fabrics that included traditional Chinese bedding, which she bleached or dyed. Despite her initial successes, Tam still struggled in her first few years and sometimes took credit-card advances to meet her small staff's payroll.

More and more stores became interested in carrying Tam's line, and she soon found herself shipping to Europe and Africa as well. She eventually cut back and revised her business plan. "The collection wasn't as good then, because I wasn't focused," she admitted to Women's Wear Daily interviewer Maryellen Gordon. "It's not important how big your business is if the collection isn't right." That same year, she changed the name of her label to "Vivienne Tam," and with a $100,000 nest egg she had saved staged her first runway show during New York's biannual Fashion Week, when American designers present their next season's lines to store buyers and fashion journalists."