South Korea puts Hanbok in the "breath of the times" through cinema and music to tell emotional stories. In your opinion, where does Vietnamese Ao Dai currently stand on the world's emotional map?
- If talking about beauty, I consider Vietnamese ao dai to be perfect. When it is a masterpiece, don't break its architecture.
Young people should promote inheritance, cherish and preserve. When creating, I never intend to destroy the collar, sleeves or transform the shirt radically. We should only "paint and gold-plate" it to maintain the original structure and beauty. In fact, there are innovative designs that even a person in the profession like me does not recognize as ao dai, how can international friends recognize our cultural brand?
Up to 90% of influencers when appearing on major holidays such as Tet choose traditional ao dai. From Ho Ngoc Ha, Tang Thanh Ha to Hoa Minzy... they are all aware of the power of original beauty.
Even my family, even though I am a designer who likes to be creative, still only wear traditional ao dai on Tet with small accents such as flowers or beads.
So according to you, what do we need to learn from the ways of doing things in Japan or Korea?
- Their success is clarity. They have two very clear lines: one line promoting the national image through original national costumes, and one line of personal fashion. They promote through movies, concerts... to approach the masses.
In Vietnam, Ao Dai has had its own fashion weeks, with films exploiting it. However, we need to bring Ao Dai to promote to the world instead of just circling around the country - where it is too close. The good news is that recently, men and young people have started wearing Ao Dai a lot. That is a very precious sign, to preserve and develop culture.
You once mentioned the lack of a "cultural script" for Ao Dai to not only be a beautiful outfit but also a historical story. What piece of puzzle are we lacking to create a boost?
- The creativity of Vietnamese artists is not lacking, what is lacking is proper investment. I believe that filmmakers, painters, and screenwriters, if they have systematic "support", will create shocking works.
Recently, we have seen the synchronous performance of nearly 50 artists wearing ao dai to contemporary music, which is very impressive. So cinema or international-scale shows are not too difficult. I hope state management agencies have orientation and funding to invest "right and right".
To build a "fashion industry" with a position, the personal efforts of designers are not enough. In your opinion, what kind of "handshake" do we need?
- We must be frank: In the fashion field, Vietnam is still the latecomer. When we are late, we must make many times more efforts to shorten the gap. Currently, Vietnamese fashion is still an unknown on the world map.
Vietnamese fashion is imbued with Eastern ideology, doing anything must "look before and after". This is good in lifestyle but sometimes restrains freedom and personality in creativity to touch the hearts of the world.
Look at H'Hen Nie's case: a brown-skinned girl with short hair, not following the standards of traditional Vietnamese beauty but approaching perfection with world criteria. As a result, she entered the Top 5 Miss Universe. Fashion is also the same, to reach industrial level, we need open thinking and synchronous support from mechanisms, policies to brands.
