Not just about fashion

Vietnamese fashion designers must work hard before their brands find popularity at home.

TSafari store inHCMC.

Almost a year after reopening her TSafari fashion brand store inHCMC, designer Ho Tran Da Thao has recently presented her latestcollection, with the theme ‘Asian Portrait.’ in which she wants to showthe modern and romantic beauty of Asian women.

Her designs are made fromexclusive fabrics such as chiffon, viole, and silk, and printed withunique high-tech 3D patterns focusing on bright colours like yellow,orange, light green, and purple-green.

Her collections are inspired bythe beauty of nature, she explained, and by old Asian and Vietnamesepatterns at cultural heritage and architectural sites.

Building the TSafari brand has been a long journey for Thao,characterised by overcoming difficulties and maintaining her passion forfashion.

After graduating in fashion design at the Australian DesignSchool in Vietnam she went to work for Ninomaxx.

Her first success waswhen she won the Mercedes-Benz Asia Fashion Award, with her firstcollection, entitled ‘Safari.’ in 2004 and received a scholarship fromthe Raffles LaSalle Institute in Singapore.

A year later she decided tofound Tsafari. In three years, from 2005 to 2008, she presented hercollections to the market, with a focus on natural fabrics andtraditional handcrafting techniques to produce contemporary garmentsinfluenced by safari wear.

One of her famous collections from thisperiod is entitled ‘I Love Vietnamese Culture’ and inspired bytraditional Dong Ho paintings.

Being a fashion designer who built her own brand, she has metobstacles from having to do everything herself, from designing,marketing and management to seeking capital and maintainingmanufacturing.

At that time she didn’t have enough experience or a goodteam behind her to help run the business. She found she needed to learnmore to be able to develop the brand.

In this situation, creativity andbusiness didn’t sit well together. She made the brave decision to closethe TSafari shop and factory in 2008, but kept part of her business bymanufacturing under ODM (Original Design Manufacturer) contracts fromEurope.

She then spent most of the five years from 2008 to 2013 teachingfashion, studying fashion in England, and working for foreign fashionhouses, to experience the professional fashion business.

In 2014 the TSafari fashion brand reappeared in Vietnam, with Thaofully prepared in concepts, design, technology and human resources tomanufacture products of superior quality.

TSafari offers a wide range oft-shirts, skirts, dresses, scarves, handbags and accessories. A yearafter its return the feedback has been good, with more and morecustomers from many regions of the country buying its products. ‘Tsafariis not just about fashion.

It’s about culture and lifestyle,’ Thaosaid, which is an idea she has always pursued. In the future TSafariwill focus on the domestic market and will trial its products in the USand Europe.

Slow steps

It’s been said that Vietnam’s fashion market ignores local designersbecause those with money will automatically buy something from overseaswhile medium and low-income earners simply can’t afford to buy them.

Inrecent years, however, the fashion market has seen changes in customerawareness about the value of a designer’s items.

Many young Vietnamesedesigners have also had the opportunity to study abroad, returning withnew trends in Vietnamese fashion that are close to global trends, whichhas changed the mindset of many customers.

I met designer Dieu Anh in her new space, a combination of a fashionstore and a coffee shop. She has just rebranded her fashion label to‘Les Saigonais by Dieu Anh’ from simply ‘Dieu Anh.’ which sheestablished in 2006.

‘Fashion design is my passion but doing business infashion is a different story,’ she said. ‘So I chose my own way to takeslow steps to learn the business and clearly understand market needs.’

Her designs are targeted at young customers with a contemporary andindividual style. In her Spring-Summer Collection 2015 she presentedoriginal ‘2 in 1’ designs where one item can be used as a dress or ablouse.

Dieu Anh won The Seiko Award in the Asia Collection Makuharicompetition in Japan in 1998 before she began studies in fashion designat the Fine Arts University Ho Chi Minh City and L’Ecole de la ChambreSyndical de la Couture Parisienne in France (2000-2004).

She has alsojoined many fashion shows in Vietnam and abroad, such as the Ao dai Show- Vietnam Heaven and Earth, held on the occasion of Saigon’s 300thanniversary in 1999, the Dragon Land Show, held during Hanoi’s 990thanniversary celebrations in 2000, an ‘Ao dai’ show within the Festivalof Hue in 2002, the Asian Designers Collection in Tokyo in 2010, and theAsia Fashion Federation in Singapore in 2013. She is also preparing anew collection with an ocean theme, for presentation to the Laos FashionShow this September.

Chuong Dang’s ao dai

‘Trading with a romantic idea’ is how designer Chuong Dang describesbringing ao dai fashions to the public for the last ten years.

He lovesthe elegant beauty of Vietnamese women in an ao dai but he also wantsthem to feel more comfortable and be able to wear it every day andeverywhere, in the office, at parties, or at formal events.

Variationsin Chuong’s ao dai designs are inspired from the old ao dai forms ofdifferent times in Vietnam. ‘It could be an ao dai my mother or mysister wore and kept carefully,’ he said.

He creates ao dai incontemporary styles with a collection of flower ao dai, two-layer ao daimade from cotton, ao dai with subtle hand-embroidered patterns, and aodai made with ample form.

His designs can be combined to wear withjeans, to present a young and active fashion style for young women.

When he was building his ‘Kujean by Chuong Dang’ brand he realisedthat its development was slow and he met challenges as he had to do manythings at the same time: production, retailing and marketing.

‘If Ididn’t have so much passion and consider fashion as my calling, mypatience would have been exhausted long ago,’ he said. He was lucky, hesaid humbly, that his ao dai have always received support fromcustomers. This convinced him to continue with Kujean by Chuong Dang.

Bringing art close to life

Bringing art close to life is the idea Tiny Ink fashion wants to showin all of their products. Its two young founders, Hoang Quyen and AnhDuc, have developed their hand-painted fashion of clothing, scarves, andshoes.

Their designs are inspired by classical paintings by famousartists such as Van Gogh and Degas as well as by Vietnamese artists. Thedesigns feature typical images of Vietnam, such as Ben Thanh Market,girls in ao dai, lotus flowers, and old Hanoi streets, which are lovedby foreign tourists.

Hoang Quyen spent a year studying and researching techniques for handpainting on fabric, from painting patterns on ao dai to using acrylicon t-shirts, before opening the first shop in 2013.

She finally decidedto choose natural oil paint on Tiny Ink’s products, which are safe forwearers. Her team are not only fashion designers but also artists, whoshe acknowledges for their contributions to the development and successof Tiny Ink.

She remembers at the very beginning experiencingdifficulties because of a lack of capital to manufacture and promote thebrand. ‘It was difficult to look for investors because our brand wasnew in the market,’ she said. ‘We had to manage everything to be able tocontinue.’

Three years on and Tiny Ink has opened three shops in HCMC and signeda contract with a fashion company to display Tiny Ink fashions in itschain of stores at airports in HCMC, Hanoi and Danang.

The Guide

Not just about fashion

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