Famed Vietnamese-American Nini Nguyen, who has worked with megastar singer Rihanna, shared her thoughts with Tuoi Tre during a ttrip to her motherland in July.

The 26-year-old, who has also worked as a fashion designer, said the language barrier was one of the biggest obstacles when she first moved to America at the age of 13. Nguyen said she was under a lot of pressure at a fashion store during her first days of working in America, but she soon became the employee with the most sales thanks to her non-stop effort.

Nguyen, who runs ninistyle.net, a familiar blog to many fashion lovers, said she started her passion for fashion with reasonably priced outfits, since she could not afford her favorite clothes.

“Things I could buy were not beautiful and things which were beautiful, I could not afford,” she shared. Then, she used her creative mind to create her own outfits from the “not-beautiful” clothes she bought.

Nguyen kept pursuing her dream of fashion and became a stylish. She has also shared outfits she has styled with people via her blog, Facebook, Twitter and Instargram, ad scored a large number of fans who admire her for the creative way she puts clothes on. With her unique style, fashionista Nini Nguyen has inspired many fashion lovers with her slogan, “It’s not what you wear but how you wear it.”

This February, she became the winner of the International Best-Dressed Challenge contest held by the American culture and fashion magazine Vanity Fair.

While talking about working with Rihanna, Nguyen shared that everything started with a call.  One day a friend of Nguyen told her that Rihanna had followed her on Instagram, but Nguyen thought that it was just a fake account of the singer on the photo sharing network. However, Rihanna continued to like more photos of Nguyen and asked Nguyen how to contact her. Nguyen then left her phone number under a photo and five minutes later, she got a phone call from the real Rihanna.

Two months later, Nguyen began working as a stylist for Rihanna. The two have now worked together for almost a year.

According to Nguyen, Rihanna is a very nice woman. Nguyen said the singer treats everyone, from her driver to her laundry staff, like family.

“We’re like friends,” Nguyen shared. “The more I work with her, the more I love her.”