Tidbits → Has a psychologist for a father and a chef for a mother.

→ Her parents cut off all contact with her mother's side of the family after Ashe turned four due to an undisclosed fight. She knows it had something to do with her parents' marriage and the fact that it was looked down on.

→ When she was eleven, her mother took her along to D.C. when she was asked to cook for the President. At the time, it was still her dream to be the first female leader of the free world so a visit to the White House excited her beyond words. A trip to the Smithsonian, however, completely changed her mind. The costume collection fascinated her and, as clearing the world of poverty and government imposed stupidity and debt took a backseat, she found herself enamored with fashion. Her parents weren't happy and her father started making her sit on his couch.

→ Moved from her family in San Jose to reside in New York City and gain some kind of sanity.

→ Studied abroad for one year in London and marks it as the happiest time of her life.

→ If you ask her, she'll tell you that her favorite romance movie- despite the fact that it's a chick flick and she generally likes to stray from those- is When Harry Met Sally. Something about Meg Ryan having to fall in love with someone who looks like Billy Crystal tickles her every time.

→ Knows one cousin from her mom's side after she managed to start talking to them when she was little. She has visited them in Mumbai a few times without letting her parents know.

→ Is always on 100 when Fashion Week (really Month) comes rolling around because it seems to be the only time she travels these days.

Born and raised in San Jose, California, Yashaswini Wilde was the only child of her parents Carlton and Divya and was spoiled as such. They made sure she never lacked anything and, in turn, made her feel suffocated her entire childhood. From the moment she could speak, they threw her into every activity they could pack into seven days and dragged her along with them on every business trip. While it was fun to travel, it wasn't fun to have to sit there and be prim and proper and feel like a doll in a glass case all the time. And, of course while all of this was going on, she was being teased in school- both by kids who made fun of her for being too Indian and others for not being Indian enough. Her mother did everything in her power to give her daughter what she considered to be a normal life but it just gave her an identity crisis.

In junior high, finally tired of the mispronunciation of her name and the realization that the Presidency was no longer a goal she wanted to achieve, Yashaswini decided to go by the name "Ashe" and has been known as that ever since. This was also the time she decided to start experimenting with her style and testing out just how many ways she could defy her parents without them catching on. She lost count at sixty eight. When it came time for her to head to college, she knew she had to get out of California. On one hand, her parents were driving her up a wall and insisting that she live at home until she graduated and on the other, all of the best fashion schools were in New York.

Ashe was accepted to both FIT and Parsons and, after researching each to see which would be a better fit, she decided on FIT for Fashion Design and Society. She interned with Vogue magazine during her senior year and while she got her Master's in Fashion Studies but was turned down for a permanent position after she graduated. Despite that upset, moving into her very own apartment was one of the happiest times of her life. It cemented the fact that she had finally escaped her family and the west coast and she felt like she fit in much better in NYC. Ashe found a job as an assistant visual merchandiser with Bergdorf Goodman while freelance writing for online magazines on the side for the next few years before feeling confident enough to reapply at vogue. She finally got the job after her second attempt and has been there for the past six years.