The first prize of the “Designed by Vietnam 2021” Contest - Vietnam Design Week 2021 has been awarded to a recycled fashion collection entitled N.A.M by young designer Vu Ta Linh from Hanoi.

The fashion collection entitled N.A.M by Hanoi designer Vu Ta Linh won 1st prize in the "Designed by Vietnam 2021" Contest - Vietnam Design Week 2021. Photo courtesy of the designer

Giving the first prize to the N.A.M collection, the organizers appreciate the creativity of the Hanoi designer in turning old clothes into unique fashion items. “Recycling would be a trend for the sustainable development of the world in the future,” they stated.

According to the designer, being himself an introvert but staying inside a room during the social distancing for months was still a huge challenge. The narrow space of the room left him exhausted and sometimes feeling drained of creative emotion. Then, the idea of the N.A.M collection came up.

He applied some Vietnamese traditional handicrafts such as hand-quilting, yard-withdrawing, hand-stitching, and patch-working to renew his old clothes and used a piece of Thai ethnic people’s cloth as an accessory to create such an amazing new fashion collection.

“With N.A.M, I wanted to tell a creative story from limitations. Limitations can be a barrier, but they do not prevent creative aspirations or desires from being transformed to adapt to new living conditions. And in my particular case, it brings up a strange emotion that I have never ever experienced before. I call it a form of metamorphosis,” Linh told The Hanoi Times.

In his award-winning collection, Linh applies some Vietnamese traditional handicrafts to restyle the used clothes. Photo courtesy of the designer

The awarding ceremony of the “Designed by Vietnam 2021” Contest was held within the framework of Vietnam Design Week 2021 that took place from November 27 to December 3, aiming to honor Vietnamese designs in the fields of fashion, media, and interior that are created inspired by Vietnamese traditional cultural elements.

In addition, the first prize of the contest “Designing souvenirs about the Temple of Literature - Quoc Tu Giam” was also awarded to the work called “Return” by Luu Nhu Ngoc. Souvenir painting with the image of the epitaph of the Temple of Literature - Quoc Tu Giam is assembled from fragments of Bat Trang pottery. The artwork was praised by the contest jury for having creative and artistic values and made of environmentally friendly and highly applicable materials.

Launched from mid-July to the end of August 2021, the “Designed by Vietnam 2021” Contest received 183 entries, featuring five areas of “Communication Design”, “Living design”, “Decor & Object design”, “Clothing design” and “Public design”.