Stay informed on our latest news!
It's an exciting time for Hung La, designer of the new and exciting menswear brand Lu'u Dan. The first generation Vietnamese-American designer has been a known force in fashion for some time, as co-founder of much loved label Kwaidan Editions, founded after he had put in his time working under Phoebe Philo at Celine and Nicolas Ghesquiere at Balenciaga.
Now, with his latest endeavor, he explores an experience much more personal— his own. From the punk bands he grew up listening to with friends stateside, to the culture he was embraced by and exposed to in his home, Lu'u Dan digs deep into Hung's roots. So, with the second collection dropping on 6/30, we gave Hung La the floor to fill us up on his undoubtedly important experience and insight.
I never saw my skin colour as different growing up. I was aware of my difference, but never saw it as a reason I could not fit in. I grew up in the 80’s in a comfortable American suburb of Washington DC. During the week, I was a shy teenager navigating school and carving out my own space in a predominantly White American environment. On the weekends, I was immersed in my Vietnamese roots, with a countless amount of community gatherings and copious amounts of food. It was a clash of two different worlds, each one with different rules and different codes. Clothing was a tool not just for assimilation, but also rejection of the traditions of my past. My grandmother was a seamstress and pattern maker back in Vietnam; after she immigrated to the US, she would make beautifully cut clothing for us as we grew up. At school, I would walk down the hallways in a full-black look, sporting wide leg and extra-baggy raver JNCO jeans, a cotton canvas belt, a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert tee in XXL and a fitted baseball cap, worn backwards.
Like a good Asian son, I started college with a major in Computer Engineering. It quickly became obvious that path was not the right fit for me. Despite not having any formal art training, I worked to prepare my portfolio to study Fashion Design at Parsons, Istituto Marangoni and then the Royal Academy in Antwerp where I completed a Masters in Fashion Design. After my Masters degree and through some friendly connections, I started my career in the studios of Balenciaga under Creative Director, Nicolas Ghesquière, shortly after I graduated from school. I felt incredibly grateful for this opportunity, and I was absolutely committed to making the most of it. I started on the pre-collection team and worked 12–14-hour days 6-7 days a week draping, making trials and 3D design samples. I was the only Asian in the design studio at that time. My experience of being an Asian American man had been one of assimilation; fighting to be included in white circles, even if on the periphery. Balenciaga was not American. It was privileged and cultured and European. Surviving there, and succeeding under mountains of work and endless creative demands, was less about talent - everyone was talented. It was a question of being able to fit in. Twenty years ago, as in many industries, you could count the people of colour in the company on both hands. Looking back, it is clear to see that these spaces were exclusionary towards people like me; at the time I couldn’t bring myself to focus on my race as an obstacle, or use it as an excuse for any setbacks.
I vividly remember feeling like I fit in for brief moments while I was at Balenciaga, but still never being truly a part of the culture; feeling accepted but not exactly one of them. I was allowed in the door, but I didn’t have access to all the rooms. There is a social fabric in every workplace, and in this particular situation I was a minority, and certain privileges were not attainable. For me, the difference between being accepted and fitting in doesn't look like much on the surface, but when you are really accepted there is this feeling of ease and understanding and when you do not, you are always left with these questions of whether you did something wrong. This led to me feeling that I had to work harder just to be treated equally; I can remember being the last one in the studio on many nights.
I felt extremely frustrated every time I was passed over for promotions and work, but rationalised it at the time that I wasn’t the most talented or was not vocal enough. I felt grateful to be there but bitter that I never got the same opportunities that others got. There is a lot of shame and self blame when others get promoted in front of you. Instantly, I would question my abilities or what I didn’t do well enough.
I remember on several occasions being in my 30’s in Paris and walking around and some random dude would just jump in my face and do a karate chop and yell “Jackie Chan,” like that was supposed to be a way of engaging or connecting with me. My experience with Anti-Asian racism has mostly been more subtle. It’s invisible most of the time and barely peeks its head above the surface. We are the “model minority”, the ones that are let in, but not fully. We are included because we work hard, stay in line and because we are not a threat. However, I often think back to joking alongside my colleagues, who would poke fun at my Asian-ness and my heritage. Doing so would allow me to feel as if I fit in with them. At the time, I believed I could disarm them with humour and make light of my racial differences; preferring to be the one making the joke at the expense of my own race first then to have them laughing behind my back. It was a manifestation of internalised racism and a whitewashing of my cultural heritage.
It’s not easy to talk about, since race was not the only issue at play, but looking back I often wondered if being another ethnicity would have changed things. I have spoken to other Asian contemporaries about the Bamboo Ceiling, the principle that we reach a ceiling in our careers because bigger opportunities are not open to us because of our skin colour, and feel like the systems in power are not set up to support our culture in the same way as others. More and more Asians in the West are empowering themselves to break through the Bamboo ceiling.
As my career progressed, I took an opportunity to move to London to work for Phoebe Philo at Celine. I was hired to be the head of the Leather and Fur department. I was up for a challenge and really admired the female centric philosophies of the brand. London, which is more diverse than Paris, offered a new opportunity for me in the design studio. Joining this team, I was not the only Asian Designer, there was another South Asian designer but we were still definitely in the minority. Work at Celine was also tough with long hours and lots of travel. The culture and rules of engagement were different from Balenciaga, but I still sometimes felt the same pain of not fitting in.
I am not saying that either Balenciaga or Celine are inherently anti-Asian. Alexander Wang was appointed Creative Director of the former shortly before I left. Both houses opened their doors to me and gave me an opportunity to learn and work in amazingly creative environments. But we cannot and should not be blind to how few Asians there are in the fashion industry, let alone in senior positions like Creative Director or CEO. So many Asians from all over the world study fashion, and yet these numbers do not translate higher up, particularly in the West.
I cannot say that I have been directly discriminated against in my work in these experiences, but I do feel there are cultural biases and energies at play that we are not always aware of. It acts like an invisible hand pushing us apart and separating us further. And in this awakening of identity and race that I am undergoing, I believe it is our obligation to ask why and to work towards equality. Fashion is now so much about inclusivity, but true inclusivity is about equality and representation, where everyone’s stories are heard, feels a sense of belonging and no one is not forgotten or passed over. Aspects of identity such as race, gender, religion, or sexual orienation are integral parts of us that cannot be separated from our being. They are the tapestry from which we compose who we are and how others understand us.
After leaving Celine, I had the opportunity to start my own brand, Kwaidan Editions, a luxury womenswear brand, with my life partner Léa Dickely in 2017. And this past January, we launched LỰU ĐẠN. We do both brands together.
LỰU ĐẠN, which means enraged or dangerous man in Vietnamese, has given me an opportunity to break through my own bamboo ceiling as a designer and founder. Our deepest ambition is telling stories in a meaningful way and spotlighting underrepresented men and women. Growing up I didn’t have many Asian Role Models to look up and the hope is that the generations going forward will have more images that represent them inside and out.
One of the greatest gifts has been connecting to other Asian Creatives who have shared some of the same struggles with their identity in Fashion. Going through these situations, I always felt so alone, but we have realised that these shared experiences are a reflection of our struggles and can also be empowering for others to understand that collectively we can do this together. LỰU ĐẠN is focused on building community as the connecting threads and forging a new brand of masculinity. We recently started an initiative we call “CITY TOURS”, where we tap Asian creatives in cities around the word to tell their stories and have a conversation about their work and life. It is through this work that we are able to see ourselves clearly, uninhibited by the aspiration to be something other than what and who we are.
Down the cobblestone side streets of Paris, amidst the buzzing, but often expected energy of fashion week, Basic.Space partnered with Los Angeles-based designer Reese Cooper to break the mold and give music and fashion lovers the ultimate URL-to-IRL experience.
In putting together the most unforgettable block party takeover for Fête de la Musique, Cooper enlisted DJs, including himself, to shut down the street and give the people of PFW and beyond a night for the books.
The partnership doesn’t come as much of a surprise to us, as both Basic.Space and Cooper embody a tactile, tapped in community spirit, and for this event, this ethos was really in the air. As the debut of Basic.Space’s work with Reese Cooper, what better way to celebrate all of the hard work and time that the RCI team has put into their Paris Showing than with a party for the people?
If the madness of the party wasn’t enough to be the highlight of the week, inside Cooper’s studio, the designer set up an on-site screen printing experience for his exclusive RCI x Basic.Space t-shirts, which were available fresh off the press. With a line trailing down the block and around the corner, guests queued up to secure a tee of their own, in trademark forest green or clean white colorways, with the added bonus of four different screens available to take home as a momento.
Like a couture iteration of a t-shirt gun, extra wristbands for attendance at the young designers highly anticipated show were thrown into the crowd while dance circles opened up and waiters from the restaurant across the street swerved in and out with trays of Aperol Spritz and teetering beer kegs on deck. But did anyone really expect this to be an average party?
True to form, Cooper didn’t take lightly the merging of fashion and music at this fête— with Hank K, Tommy Gold, Skinny Macho, and Pedro taking turns spinning throughout the night. With a mix of confirmed party bangers, infused with proper euro-house flair, the party lasted well into the night. And as the night went on, the block rightfully flooded with hundreds of people. This was the party that literally stopped traffic.
However, for anyone unable to make it to Paris and experience it for themselves, there’s no need to worry. Head over to the Basic.Space site for everything you need to remedy the fomo— from an exclusive party recap to the ability to secure a Reese Cooper original tee of your own.
Catch the highlights of how the night went down below.
An update for anyone anxious as to how the Louis Vuitton Men's collection by the Louis Vuitton Studio Prêt-à-Porter Homme for Spring/Summer 2023 would approach a collection without the iconic fashion house's late Creative Director, Virgil Abloh, while none could ever touch his unique style— this season presented a tasteful, loving, and artful homage to Abloh's work and personal ethos.
Beautifully illustrated and bountiful in depth, the show notes broke down the show into four facets: "Magnified playground", "Parade for the mind", "French romanticism", "Arts and crafts". Both in literal and metaphoric terms, these concepts were woven into each piece as well as the elaborate presentation of the show in Paris.
Set on a "Yellow Brick Road", echoing the theme of the playful pop-up invites for the show, the crowd experienced a pre-show performance from the Florida A&M 100 Marching Band of Tallahassee, followed by Kendrick Lamar— bedecked in a glittering crown of thorns— who rapped from his spot in the front row as the models began to walk.
In more direct references to the late designer, the collection featured "toybox" themed motifs such as paper airplanes and utilized a palate of bright colors nostalgic to his eight seasons with the brand.
Marni’s FW 2022 VOL. 2 collection is sewn together with a serrated needle. In an age where technical perfection is more attainable than ever before, VOL 2. spits in the face of advancements in technology and machinery, instead submitting courageously to the imperfections and errors of the human hand.
By taking these imperfections to unique and calculated extremes, the collection offers a critique on the direction our society seems to be heading in, while still implementing modern and avant-garde sensibilities to save the show from being a history lesson on what once was.
Please confirm that you are at least 18 years old.