Au naturale: Naturally died silk needs to be treated to keep the colour last longer.
HANOI — In the two months leading up to Tết, the Lunar New Year, the fashion houses across the country launch their latest áo dài (Vietnamese traditional costume) collections for the year.
Women of all ages busily prepare one of their most special costumes of the year, second only to the ones they wear for the wedding of a family member.
If the fashion world has two collections – one for Spring/Summer and one for Autumn/Winter – then many Vietnamese designers tend to have three each year: the same two collections, and one just for áo dài.
People often think a delicate outfit like áo dài can be hard to wear, because you are supposed to show the body under a couple layers of thin silk or velvet. But actually, the free flow of the drapes make it fit any body type and the long sleeves and long trousers make it safe to wear if you don’t want to expose your skin.
Among all the áo dài, the most sophisticated ones are embroidered, with each image bearing a message or goal for the person wearing it.
When Việt Nam was a kingdom, many villages survived by filling the wardrobes of the King, his wife and his contingent of concubines. Since Việt Nam became a republic in 1945, these traditional villages switched to making ornate embroidered tablecloths, napkins, embroidered paintings and duvet covers, or kimonos, small gift boxes and bags.
Besides rice farming work, the livelihoods of these artisans depend on the export orders they receive.
Lan says she was lucky to have grown up in Quất Động Village in a land of more than 200 craft villages in the Hà Tây region.
It was as natural a part of life as breathing. Lan says she had a happy childhood playing in her country home and watching her family sewing. They would take a break to prepare a meal, then go back to work together again.
So she did. From early on, children learned to make simple stitches. The first detail they were allowed to sew was the water in a larger dragon painting.
“Sometimes, when they worked on a large painting, six or seven people would sit around a frame working at the same time to make a landscape painting or one that has dragons, kylins, turles and phoenixes, the ancient sacred symbols. The overall ambience was really busy and happy,” she says.
Lan says she did exactly what her parents wanted her to do. She studied well, finished college and got a job as a journalist at Radio the Voice of Việt Nam. To many of her fellow villagers, and her cousins who stayed to work as craftspeople, it was a dream job to have – if you do not make any grave mistakes, you are on the right track to get your pension upon retirement.
But since 2005 her village has received fewer orders year by year, so many families have opted for other ways to make ends meet. Since 2010, there was a little vogue of cross stitch works that people were enthusiastic about. But to Lan, it was not the real embroidery she used to know.
“The more I went to my village, the more I had to see our family’s beloved old things being lost,” Lan says.
“I treasure my memory, and that of our family, of our village’s craft. My younger cousins also loved it and I want to keep the line going.
Lan wasn’t convinced she would change careers, until a family anniversary for an ancestor that changed her mind for good.
As a family deeply rooted in the village life of the country, Lan says her family has many anniversaries to worship ancient ancestors throughout the year.
Two years ago around this time of year, she went home to see her father discarding her family’s own embroidered wooden and bamboo frames, including some from her grandparents’ time.
Lan made a very smooth transition from working as a journalist to starting up her business. She brought some embroidery samples to work and showed her colleagues, who ordered some for themselves and became the first customers of her start-up. Word of the beautiful pieces of clothing travelled fast and in no time she was overloaded with orders.
Hà Trang, another journalist with design talent, worked with her for a few months.
Hà Trang also quit her job one month later to work full time in the business, taking care of the designs for Tú Thị.
“What I brought up has started burning like fire!” she says in her home on a tiny alley in the Old Quarter. The old frames were not burnt to ashes, but they helped light a match in her head.
Tú Thị Hand Embroidery shop has tried to save costs by using Lan’s home for the office.
By following this policy, Lan says she and her company respect the creative work of others, and promote her own company’s designs.
For Tết, Hà Trang has come up with new designs of little pink pigs, which are also birth sign animal for both of the founders. “I go to night design classes for further training to offer customized drawings for clients,” she says.
Choosing better quality fabric is important to their company. They came up with their own designs for the Spring/Fall collections on Vietnamese silk made in Vạn Phúc here in Hà Nội, Mã Châu in Hội An or Bảo Lộc in Lâm Đồng Province.