“Khanh Pham: Designing for change”

by Suchi Rudra

It didn’t matter that her parents kept telling her no.

By the time Khanh Pham moved with her family from Vietnam to the US at the age of 13, she was already determined to be a designer. Pham taught herself to sew, made her own clothes and attended college at University of Oklahoma to obtain a degree in fashion. After graduation, Pham landed a job at a fashion show, and it was then that Pham says her parents finally relaxed and recognized her talent and passion for fashion.

But Pham had been confident in her plans all along, even as she watched her eight brothers and sisters become accountants, dentists and engineers. When Pham got married and moved to Dallas, she worked a couple years with Robert Talbott Ties, a high end tie company, where she learned how critical color is as a design component. “You can change everything just by the color,” Pham says.

Before her recent move to the D.C. area, Pham had started a clothing business in Dallas, but now she concentrates on designing collections for shows. Most recently, Pham showed 15 new pieces at the 18th International Couture Collections Show hosted by DC Fashion Week.

Pham’s work has brought a unique twist to the traditional Vietnamese dress by focusing on the style of the dress and not on the fabric and print as traditional designers do.

“It’s something that I feel I can contribute to the world, something that neither Vietnamese nor Americans have seen before. I fell in love with doing this since I started–how I can create a piece that is so simple and elegant,” Pham says.

Pham works with a tailor to put together a dress in two or three days, but her detailed design process is what takes up the most time. Pham’s dresses are created mostly from 100 percent silk, with silk lining, and she pays great attention to the details in the back of the dress as much as the front.

One of her favorite dresses so far is a simple white and grey dress with sleeves that are cut differently in the front and back. “It’s very simple,” Pham points out, “but that is my style, my signature, who I am as a designer. It’s funny how you create it on paper, and you know right away that it’s going to be good.”

As per traditional Vietnamese dress, the dresses that Pham designs are also a two-piece set consisting of a tunic-like top and pants underneath.

“Women usually wear these dresses to school. Since I moved here, I don’t have a lot of occasion to wear them, except to certain Asian events. This has motivated me to design something that can be worn more often,” Pham explains.

Pham strongly believes that fashion is about change and to recreate the same traditional design is easy. Instead the designer keeps the form and plays with the idea, cutting the pants into shorts, changing the sleeves or the collar.

In the near future, Pham hopes to bring back her designs to Vietnam (she hasn’t been back since she came to the US) and present them alongside famous Vietnamese designers.

“I think I have to be careful if I do that though. But I hope they would accept my designs, because fashion is all about the new, about how to make change and make a difference,” she says.

Pham has some advice to offer aspiring fashion designers: “Start with passion, because without passion it won’t sustain. You will carry on no matter what happens if you have a passion for it. It seems like a cliché, but it’s true. This business is not as glamorous as you think.”

Pham’s next show is due for early fall.

Asian Fortune is an English language newspaper for Asian American professionals in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. Visit fb.com/asianfortune to stay up to date with our news and what’s going on in the Asian American community.