Vern Yip (born June 27, 1968, in Hong Kong) is an American interior designer based in

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...

. He periodically appeared on

TLC TLC may refer to: Arts and entertainment Television * ''TLC'' (TV series), a 2002 British situational comedy television series that aired on BBC2 * TLC (TV network), formerly the Learning Channel, an American cable TV network ** TLC (Asia), an A ...

's ''

Trading Spaces ''Trading Spaces'' is an hour-long American television reality program that originally aired from 2000 to 2008 on the cable channels TLC and Discovery Home. The format of the show was based on the BBC TV series '' Changing Rooms''. The first ...

'' through its fourth season, and was known for frequently including silk, candles and flowers in the rooms he designed. He is one of the panel of judges on

HGTV HGTV (an initialism for Home & Garden Television) is an American basic cable channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The network primarily broadcasts reality programming related to home improvement and real estate. HGTV Dream Home is an ...

's ''

Design Star ''HGTV Star'', named ''HGTV Design Star'' for the first seven seasons, is an American reality competition show that premiered on July 23, 2006, on the cable television network HGTV. Clive Pearse served as host for Seasons 1-4, then judge Vern Yi ...

''. Yip hosted four seasons of HGTV's show '' Deserving Design''. Yip hosted an HGTV special called Urban Oasis, in which he designed a Chicago loft in the Trump International Hotel.

Early life

Yip went to high school in northern Virginia at

McLean High School McLean High School is a public high school within the Fairfax County Public Schools in McLean, Virginia, United States. In 2024, ''U.S. News & World Report'' rated McLean the 218th-best U.S. public high school, and fifth-best in Virginia. Hist ...

in the class of 1986. Yip double-majored in

Chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...

and

Economics Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...

at his alma mater, the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson and contains his The Lawn, Academical Village, a World H ...

, and later received a masters in management and architecture from the

Georgia Institute of Technology The Georgia Institute of Technology (commonly referred to as Georgia Tech, GT, and simply Tech or the Institute) is a public university, public research university and Institute of technology (United States), institute of technology in Atlanta, ...

. Although he considered opening a design firm in Atlanta, Georgia, Yip says he is happy in his television roles "transforming lives through design".

Personal life

Yip and his partner, Craig Koch, have a son who was born in 2010. The couple's second child, a girl, was born in 2011.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Yip, Vern 1968 births Living people American interior designers American people of Hong Kong descent Georgia Tech alumni American LGBTQ broadcasters Participants in American reality television series University of Virginia alumni American LGBTQ people of Asian descent