Exploring Vietnamese Women’s Evolving Cultural Identity Via Textile Design

This project explores how Vietnamese women’s cultural identity can be expressed through textile design that connects tradition with contemporary life. Using a theory–practice feedback loop, it translates key conceptual frameworks—narrative identity, cultural sustainability, hybridity, ethics, and emotional design—into studio processes that link theory with material outcomes, in dialogue with contemporary Vietnamese practitioners who share a focus on sustainability and cultural renewal. Across two creative phases, the work moves from hand-crafted textile experiments to a refined digital design system—and the final outcomes integrate both approaches into one cohesive body of work.

The design journey develops two garments drawn from Vietnamese tradition—the yếm (halter top) and váy đụp (tube skirt)—reinterpreted through modern textile methods including eco-printing, natural dyeing, and digital printing. In the first phase, eco-printing, natural dyeing, and hand processes revealed identity through material discovery and emotion. Colours shifted through accident and time, telling stories of labour, resilience, and community care. The second phase translated these insights into a repeatable design language grounded in Vietnamese visual logic—drawing on Đạo Mẫu (Mother Goddess symbols), the Cat (Mão) zodiac, and Đông Hồ folk-painting grammar. Digital printing, disciplined placement, and rhythm on the body turned heritage into a living system of form and motion.

Together, the integrated works show identity as something that moves, breathes, and adapts—balancing handmade tactility and digital precision while keeping cultural meaning alive.