Bringing Hanoi’s Heritage into Contemporary Fashion
Beyond architecture, painting and music, Hanoi’s essence was showcased through fashion at the recent The Colors of Hanoi show. Designers Ha Duy, Cao Minh Tien and Adrian Anh Tuan presented fresh perspectives on the capital, highlighting its landscapes, traditional crafts and flower seasons through three distinct collections.
The Color of Hanoi is conceived as the journey of exploring the city through layers of texture and emotions. The show focuses on elements that are close to the city, including lights, lake waters, early-morning mist, urban memories, traditional crafts and its flower seasons.
Three core values which are elegance, heritage, and modernity run throughout the show. Each designer chooses a distinctive material to tell the story of the city, offering different interpretations of Hanoi. Through fashion, the understated elegance attached to Hanoians is reinterpreted through contemporary design thinking and artistic expression.
Designer Ha Duy’s collection Suong Kinh Ky explores the capital’s delicate and feminine beauty. Elements such as lake waters, early-morning mist, lights and soft materials are translated into design language. The collection primarily focuses on moments rich in emotion and evokes Hanoi's image through its lightness, elegance and the distinctive beauty of the local.
Meanwhile, designer Cao Minh Tien explores Hanoi through the lens of urban memory. The But ky Hanoi (Hanoi Diary) collection combines inspiration drawn from sketches of the city with the art of rattan and bamboo weaving, creating an interplay between traditional craft materials and modern design.
Incorporating rattan and bamboo weaving into fashion not only recreates a familiar cultural value but also shows how traditional materials can be transformed into new structures and lines.
Drawing on another distinctive symbol of Hanoi, Adrian Anh Tuan chooses the city's seasonal flowers as the inspiration for his collection Hanoi Flower Seasons.
Hanoi is known for its seasonal flowers which each gives the city a unique look. From this inspiration, the designer connects the image of flowers with ao dai, painting and a contemporary Vietnam spirit.
Through the collection, the traditional elements are reinterpreted in a new context, expanding the narrative of Vietnamese fashion and highlighting its potential to engage with international creative trends.
The three collections share a common approach to heritage, moving past mere preservation of familiar symbols to reinterpret them through contemporary expression for everyday use./.