HUAN VU Designer uses clothes as a medium for art

Vintage fashion and ideas from native Asia inspire this designer's creations.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
SEATTLE -- What began as an idea for a marketing project in college in the early '90s has turned into a high-concept fashion statement by Huan Vu, who recently celebrated the one-year anniversary of his trendy clothing store in Seattle.
Vu, which is also the name of the store, is French for "to have seen," which aptly describes much of what the designer creates or finds for his store. Most of the men's and women's clothes are secondhand: vintage clothing, collected from Seattle and from wherever he travels. He also offers a selection of clothes he designs and makes himself.
"My clothing is more on the artistic side," he said. "If art can be on the wall, why can't it be on clothing? I try to use all aspects of art by using clothing as a medium."
For example, he'll take a basic white men's shirt and borrow details from Asia, such as buttons, Indian beadwork and Chinese embroidery.
"It's tailored so a contemporary man does not have to feel like he's in a uniform with the rest of corporate America," he said.
Vu's marketing and management studies at Portland State University in Oregon led him to his mix of creating new clothes and finding stylish vintage items.
Recycling
"I did a project on recycling because, during the '90s, it was a very popular topic," Vu said. "I saw there was an opportunity to seek profits in doing something in recycling. When I did my research for class, I started buying second-hand clothes and I realized the resale value of things."
Taking advantage of the concept "buy low and sell high," Vu, now 35, opened his first store, Vintage Revu, in Portland in 1992.
He learned that vintage is "finding nostalgia. It makes you feel comfortable ... it gives a sense of individual character. It's very expressive."
Vu says people tend to go through several phases in buying secondhand clothes -- recycling, he calls it.
"The first time they recycle, they don't realize it. They buy it because it's inexpensive. The second time they recycle, they value it. People yearn for a little bit of the past."
Three years of working as a graphic artist in college also informs his work as a clothing designer: "I was taught to be disciplined in making sure everything was accurate and detailed."
How he learned
Vu has never formally studied sewing or clothing design. Instead, he read fashion design books and took apart old clothes to learn how material is sewn together. But he did have a little bit of help when he was younger. Growing up with a seamstress mother, Vu had to do the "dirty work," such as sewing hems.
When Vu was 10 years old, his parents moved him and his two brothers to Portland from Vietnam to escape the communist government.
"I think for the sake of my future, my parents wanted to flee," Vu said. "It was an OK childhood, but for my parents it was a struggle. So many things were rationed. Our freedom was literally gone."
He learned English in grade school in Portland. "Everything was so spread out and big, but I adjusted quickly. I was a kid," he said. "I had a difficult time with the other kids, but that's childhood."
Vu still speaks Vietnamese with his family, and has worked to maintain his native roots. "My look is about the East meeting the West," Vu said.
Recently, to celebrate the store's one-year anniversary, he held a fashion show at a French restaurant up the street. Three men and 11 women modeled vintage frocks he had found, or clothes that he'd made within the past year. The men wore looks that came from the 1960s and '70s: an American flag bandanna hanging out the back pocket of tight, light-blue jeans, an open black leather motorcycle jacket, spectator sunglasses. Another man wore a black fur coat and black pants with sequin detailing.
The women also wore clothes reminiscent of the 1960s, as well as the '40s and the '80s. One woman wore a red bustier over a colorful striped shirt, and loose-fitting black pants with a yellow handkerchief dangling from the side pocket.