Vietnam bags a French designer

For French designer Valerie Cordier, travelling is more than a hobby. It’s an activity where inspiration waits to be discovered.
Cordier is already well known among Vietnamese and expatriates living in Vietnam for the bags she designs, often using second-hand food containers.
 “A friend told me that discovery is an accident that bursts into a prepared mind,” she says. “This is exactly how I feel about designs for bags. I open my mind and make myself available for exploring, without following a plan. I give free rein to the possibilities, and then anything can inspire me.”
One place she seems to have found a lot of inspiration is Vietnam. She can spend hours in wholesale fabric shops on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City, sweating in the hot sun as she chooses promising materials from dozens of rolls.
In fact, the avid traveller has been “stuck” in Vietnam for 14 years now, and in the process developed her “Valerie Cordier – Paris to Hanoi” line.
“Vietnam brings me happiness and inspiration,” she says. “I love the flexibility of the people here. People are most of the time happy and smiling. I also love all the craftsmanship of the ethnic minorities.”
Cordier usually goes shopping before settling in with idea for catalogues and the textures.
“Sourcing is the most exhausting process,” she says. “It takes vision and a sense of balance at all times.”
She says the success of choosing material is well worth the effort, because the process itself gives them a new lease on life. It also means tapping into skills, craftsmanship and art.
Cordier has often visited ethnic tribes in the mountains and finds their woven fabrics the most beautiful and delicate in the world. “I love ethnic art and there’s a lot of it to be found in Vietnam,” she says.
She helped a group of Tay women in northern Son La province modernise some of their patterns by changing the colours traditionally used.
“This is a perfect way to create my own exclusive, exquisite fabric and a good way to support the community. I like their traditional skills.”
Cordier has created material from used food containers, which are cheap, unusual and sometimes recycled. She finds animal-feed bags a particularly good material with nice colours, cute patterns and durability.
“I got the idea in Cambodia when I saw people using this sackcloth as a bag – very cheap and with no details, no leather, no lining. I thought, ‘I can make something more trendy, solid and practical.’”
The pattern is crucial, she says. She chooses sacks with eye-catching colours and patterns.
“I lay out all my materials and then play with them, grouping them in different ways. It can take a long time searching for a perfect combination because, at this stage, the material is still guiding the creation.”
She washes all the sacks carefully before painting them decoratively.
“I started to use recycled materials because it’s technically interesting to use something already existing and finding other ways to use it,” she says. “I don’t order something – I find something and reuse it. You don’t need to produce more things on earth.”
Cordier has all her bags handmade at a workshop on the edge of Hanoi. She feels lucky to have a skilful team that’s as passionate about the work as she is. “I chose them for the expertise and experience, and they trust my creative mind.”
Tran Khanh Cuong, director of Da Viet JSC, says the workshop has produced many kinds of products for many brands, but Cordier’s are particularly hard to make.
“They require meticulousness because of the numerous small details,” he says. “It takes more time and we need to be patient.”
Cordier combines her photos and sketches with the craftsmanship and materials to create her products. The work is less difficulty for her because she’s been working with the team for a long time and they’ve “adopted” each other.
Nguyen Hong Ngan, sales manager at Tan My Designs in Hanoi, which sells Cordier’s bags, points out that “every single item is a unique piece from inside to outside. 
“Recently she’s been using recycled materials, which foreign customers find fascinating. She uses these materials in a clever way, so that the products look special and very Vietnamese.”
“As I often say, I didn’t choose Vietnam – Vietnam chose me,” Cordier says. “When I first came it was for a six-month internship, and I’ve been here 14 years.”