Mac Nua — Vo Viet Chung

When Vo Viet Chung first began searching for the looms that once produced Lanh My A silk, most people told him it was already too late. The traditional weaving industry in Dong Thap had been in decline for decades, overtaken by mass-market synthetic fabrics. The knowledge of how to create the silk’s distinctive ebony sheen – achieved by treating the cloth with juice from the mac nua fruit – existed only in the memories of a dwindling number of older craftspeople.

Over two decades, Chung funded the reconstruction of traditional looms, worked with surviving artisans to document and revive the production process, and made Lanh My A the signature material of his international collections. The silk appeared on catwalks in Paris, New York, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. In 2007, UNESCO recognised his contribution to its preservation – the first such award given to a Vietnamese fashion designer for textile heritage work.

Metro Writers was commissioned to record the full arc of this story, both the cultural restoration and the career it shaped. Written by Michael Arnold and fashion writer Quyen Bui, the 225-page hardcover was published by the Ho Chi Minh City Culture, Literature and Arts Publishing House in 2022, on the 100th anniversary of Lanh My A in southern Vietnam. The book was produced with the support of Mme Nguyen Thi Mai Thanh, General Director of REE Refrigeration Electrical Engineering Company.

At the launch, Chung dedicated 50 per cent of the book’s proceeds to orphaned children whose parents died during the COVID-19 pandemic. The book coincided with the 25th anniversary of his first international ao dai collection, making it both a biography and a milestone document for one of Vietnam’s most significant fashion careers.

A fabric almost lost to history. A designer who refused to let it go.

For more than a century, Lanh My A – a lustrous, moisture-resistant black silk produced in Dong Thap Province’s Hoang Ngu District – was one of southern Vietnam’s most prized fabrics. By the late twentieth century, the knowledge of how to produce it had all but vanished.

In the early 2000s, Vo Viet Chung set out to find what remained. He located the surviving looms, recovered the techniques, and began incorporating the restored silk into the collections that would take him from Ho Chi Minh City to Paris, New York, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. His work earned Vietnam’s first UNESCO award for the preservation of Lanh My A, and in 2020, he became the first Vietnamese fashion designer to receive the State’s Third Class Labour Medal.

Mac Nua – named for the ebony-coloured mac nua fruit used to dye the silk – is the biography and portfolio of a designer who built an international career on a single conviction: that Vietnamese textile traditions deserve a place on the world stage. It is also a record of a cultural restoration story that might otherwise have been lost.

It takes great resolve to follow a passion down a long and uncertain road. When Vo Viet Chung started out on his journey to become a celebrated fashion designer, success was by no means guaranteed. His sole advantage was his mother, who had become his greatest support, the source of his inspiration, and his constant protector whenever his strength would fade. Above all things, she accepted and encouraged him in his chosen way of life.

This was not true of every member of Vo Viet Chung’s family. His father was a tough character with a forceful temper. The more Chung insisted on following his calling, the more his father dealt out physical “discouragement”. The beatings counted for nothing in the end; Chung’s artistic drive was so intense that there could be no alternative.

One one occasion, he was beaten by his father at twilight. The chickens had just returned to their coop; Chung ran and leapt in with them, sending them flying as if they could be a protective barrier. His father stood there with rod in hand, for once unable to hold back his laughter at his son’s stubbornness.

But there were times when even he himself wondered if it would even be possible to become a designer. People in the countryside often encouraged their children to become doctors or engineers; any practical profession that would make the family proud. In that place and time, no one seemed to have any idea what a designer even was. Somehow, the profession still held a magical sway over him that gave him exceptionally clear vision. Fashion design would be his calling.

— Vo Viet Chung, Mac Nua