Linh Nguyen, design process

Trying to understand her own identity, Linh Nguyen has turned to the 1980s to discover the beginnings of the merge of Czech and Vietnamese culture. Her graduate collection was driven by the stories of her parents when they left post-war Vietnam and were moved to Czechoslovakia at the time and how they rediscovered youth in a new context. There was something so strongly contradicting, but so well hidden under layers of heavy textures and prints which she wanted to convey.

Linh’s design process always starts with fabrication, colours and textures as it brings the stories to life. To create this nostalgic collection Linh has looked at the interiors her parents and their friends used to live in. Patterned carpets and curtains, floral velvet was combined with denim and checked fabrics with a touch of pink to brighten up this vintage washed collection. This was such a personal project, it was a process of reliving, reimagining and reinterpreting the past. Linh has taken on a complex process of merging garments together, playing with perception and interpretation, tricking the eye with prints covering the subtle “error” within garments.

She has taken specific garments such as biker jacket or jeans from her research and then started to reinterpret them. In-depth garment research and image analysis with multiple ways of understanding it, switching between 2D and 3D have stimulated her design process allowing her to create each garment with a twist whether it be the unusual fabric for the garment type or an illusion. The final outcomes are outfits, each representing a character that has emerged from these stories.