Lillian Sam was born in 1919 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, as a second-generation Chinese Canadian. Growing up in a poor family in Vancouver's Chinatown, Lillian had a difficult upbringing and was put into an orphanage for three years with her siblings. Lillian was passionate about fashion and clothing as a way to survive her daily realities. Her fashion inspirations were 1940s Hollywood stars, and she would imitate their glamorous styles by making similar clothing pieces by herself. Lillian fancied white people and Western clothing because she potentially associated them with privilege and power. Lillian faced discrimination and was outcasted by Vancouver's Chinatown due to her mother's scandal of being a sex worker. She moved out of Vancouver's Chinatown at twenty-four, considered one of the first women to live outside this community. Lillian was seen as a woman with incredible power, strength, and resilience to fight adversities in the eyes of her granddaughter Marielle, who thinks Lillian’s fashion made a strong statement of her inner personality and her pursuit of a better life.