Maker Stories: Collection 04
Collection 04, Adornment, began with a desire to create objects that felt both intimate and sculptural. Objects that could be worn, held and kept, but that also carried within them the knowledge of the hands that made them.
For me, the process of creating a collection is never simply about arriving with a finished design and asking someone to reproduce it. It begins with connection. Through different channels and introductions, I was able to meet and work with two makers from craft villages outside Hà Nội, each bringing a deeply established knowledge of their material.
The buffalo horn forms are carved by Nguyễn Chí Bình, 47, from Thụy Ứng, Hà Nội. Thụy Ứng has long been known for its tradition of working with buffalo and cattle horn, with skills passed through generations of families in the village.
Bình grew up around this knowledge, learning from family members and developing his own understanding of how the material behaves. Buffalo horn is never entirely uniform. Each piece carries natural differences in tone, grain and translucency. It requires experience to understand how it can be heated, shaped, carved and refined without losing its character.
Working together meant finding a meeting point between the forms I had imagined and the techniques Bình had spent years honing. The designs evolved through conversation, sampling and adjustment. His knowledge of the material gave the objects their final balance, weight and finish.
Once carved, the pieces pass into the hands of Tạ Hùng Cường, 51, from Hạ Thái, Hồng Vân, Hà Nội.
Hạ Thái is a historic lacquer village where lacquer knowledge has been practised and developed across generations. The process is slow and exacting, often involving repeated applications, drying, sanding and polishing before the final surface is achieved.
For Collection 04, Cường lacquers each object in a deep oxblood red. It is a colour that appears almost black in shadow, but reveals warmth and depth when it catches the light. The lacquer is not simply a decorative surface. It transforms the horn, creating a tension between the natural material beneath and the rich, polished colour layered over it.
What I value most about working with both Bình and Cường is that the collection could not exist through design alone. It is shaped by the knowledge they inherited, the skills they have continued to practise and their willingness to explore those skills through a new series of objects with me.
Collection 04, Adornment, is therefore as much about the process of making as it is about the final pieces. It reflects what becomes possible when traditional material knowledge enters into a contemporary conversation, without erasing the identity of the craft or the people behind it.
The first release of Collection 04, Adornment, is available online now, with each design produced in a limited edition of 10 pieces.
