Stylish hands across the sea

Four garments in the “fusion” fashion collection of two student designers, one from Vietnam and the other from New Zealand, won first prize at the first-ever New Zealand-Vietnam Fashion Collaboration and Show held on August 6 in Ho Chi Minh City.

The winners, Chu Khanh Vy, a senior at Hanoi University of Industrial Arts, and Nicola Luey from the Auckland University of Technology competed against 20 other outstanding design students.

“We intended to praise the nature of the two countries, including the beauty of the capes, cliffs, forests, hills and beaches of New Zealand, and nature in the mountainous northern regions of Vietnam,” Vy said.

The designers said their garments were inspired by the bright patterns and interesting textures in the handcrafted clothing of ethnic minorities living in Vietnam’s north.

The team also took inspiration from New Zealand wool for its unique natural qualities and flax plants whose leaves are used in traditional weaving. The fabrics combined natural fibres such as wool and linen and traditional weaving patterns created by skilled artisans in northern Vietnam.

Steven Joyce, New Zealand Minister of Tertiary Education, crowned the winning team and gave it a NZ$2,000 (Bt36,250) cash prize. The second-place team, Brendon Lee and Vo Kim Ngoc, won $1,000.

The event was the sixth major activity this year organised by the New Zealand embassy to celebrate 40 years of friendship between the two countries.

“Our aim with this project is to connect bright, young, creative students from New Zealand and Vietnam and to showcase the creative and innovative side of New Zealand’s world-class education institutions to an audience in Vietnam,” said Ambassador Haike Manning.

“We are really pleased with the innovative, vibrant, unique creations the students have produced. It is fascinating to see how the students have tackled the theme of ‘fusion’ and the connections between our two cultures.”

The collaboration formally started in May, when 10 teams, with one Vietnamese and one New Zealand student each, were selected from six top fashion institutes and universities in the two countries. The teams collaborated online to produce four garments each, based on the fusion theme, embodying the common traits, values and unique cultural characteristics of each country. A critical element to the success of the collaboration was how the students worked together long-distance, using IT platforms.

The 10 New Zealand students arrived in Vietnam on August 1 to finalise their garments with their Vietnamese partners, prior to the fashion show.

The jury included Ambassador Manning, New Zealand fashion designer Tamsin Cooper, Miss Asia |USA 2006 Jennifer Pham and Fashion mentor and |head producer of Vietnam’s Project Runway 2014-15 Tung Leo.

The team of Chung Hung Khai and Tia Feng won third prize. Feng said their collection was based on a story about a girl who had gone through rough times |and overcome obstacles.

Phung Bach and Megan Stewart said their collection combined traditional Vietnamese ao dai with selected cultural aspects of New Zealand. They said they looked into humorous pop-culture elements including Kiwi slang like “sweet as” and Kiwi childhood imagery, such as “The Longest Drink in Town” and “Tip Top”.

Hoang Kha and Bridget Robertson said in a statement, “We treated this project as a personal story of the coming together of two people whose lives started off as blank slates and have been influenced by many different things and cultures resulting in who they are today.” They used white, saying it “represents the newborn child who is free from any influence in the world”, blue to represent the ocean that surrounds their countries, and metallic and bold colours signifying “personalities along with popular culture that has influenced our lives”.

Their collection also featured hand embroidery incorporating icons from different subcultures, |as well as influences that have affected them |throughout their lives.