Mai Lâm’s life is a flow of disrupted history and a recovered past.
Though present in Vietnam since 2005 with a storefront on the timeless Đồng Khởi street, the name Mai Lâm remains a mystery to many. Few know she was the costume designer behind Địa Đạo (Tunnel), the acclaimed film by director Bùi Thạc Chuyên.
In the brand’s own catalogue, her life is drawn as follows: “An insider who witnessed history at its best and worst, yet an outsider whose identity is lost at the crossroads of East and West.”
It is precisely because she lives between two worlds – East and West – that Mai Lâm brings quiet harmony into her designs. “Vietnamese culture is my root,” she reflects. “Western culture broadened my perspectives.” Years abroad taught her to understand foreign sensibilities. In each piece, she blends Vietnamese identity with Western aesthetics. Her work speaks to international eyes, inviting them to feel the beauty of Vietnam’s artisanal heritage. For Mai Lâm, culture isn’t a promotion tool – it is the essence of every piece.
When asked why she waited two decades before deciding to go global, Mai Lâm shared: “Because I wanted my artisans to be truly ready. I had to guide them, step by step. And now, the time has come.” Those twenty years weren’t spent waiting, but in quiet mastery to sharpen each stitch, steady every hammer blow until every piece weaved with Mai Lâm’s touch.
She calls it “wearable art” — intricate, refined works of art that remain comfortable and practical in everyday life.
Mai Lâm’s touch reveals itself in aged textiles brocade, silk paired with traditional Vietnamese craftsmanship: fabric dyed with tea and coffee, embroidery done by hand, rivets hammered one by one.
Throughout her designs, echoes of Eastern culture linger: the sacred dragon of her Kim Long collection, the dragonfly’s wing, the Mai blossom in bloom.
Mai Lâm often brings together materials that seem worlds apart: metal, zinc, iron, wood paired with fabric, thread, silk, or canvas. The tension between rough and tender, between the classical and the contemporary, reflects the yin-yang philosophy she lives by.
One of the most personal imprints in Mai Lam’s work is the Mai blossom rivet – a motif born from a moment forever etched in her memory. Once, diving into the water to save a child who had fallen from a boat, she caught a vision: moonlight dancing through bubbles, like threads of glitter. That fleeting, enchanted image stayed with her. It would later return, transformed into small metallic Mai blossoms rivets now scattered throughout her creative universe. Between life and death, between cold water and a darkened sky, Mai Lâm still saw beauty and reached for it.
Mai Lâm holds a deep fascination for military garments not just for their rugged, timeworn textures, but for the thick layers of history. Mai Lâm shares: "I started collecting real military jackets from the wartime because of personal memories. My father was originally from Dien Bien Phu in the 40s before migrating to the south, and my brother-in-law passed away during the American-Vietnam War. So, I've always collected vintage jackets and vests from these eras, and reworked them with my own Mai Lâm's Touch, as a way to remember and honor them.”
One day, while strolling through a local market with her child, Mai Lâm came across old soldier uniforms for sale. She recalls: “It suddenly struck me: Why not turn these into wearable art? To weave culture, history, and Vietnamese craftsmanship into each piece – with the help of artisans who specialize in brass buttons, in leather…” For Mai Lâm, that moment stirred a quiet question that has guided her ever since: Why not use Vietnam’s history and culture to tell a story?
Most recently, her lifelong interest in vintage wartime garments led to her debut as a costume designer for Địa Đạo, the newly premiered film by director Bùi Thạc Chuyên. The film portrays the lives of Vietnamese guerrillas inside the Củ Chi tunnels, where Mai Lâm not only sourced authentic wartime clothing for the cast but also contributed her expertise in designing and curating the overall costume aesthetic, bringing historical accuracy and personal meaning to the screen.
Yet when introducing these military jackets from the American-Vietnam War to an international stage, a question lingers – would the army green, the soldier’s silhouette, inadvertently recall memories of war?
Mai Lâm smiles gently: “I want to turn memories of war into images of peace. That is the artistic embellishment of Mai Lâm. When people see the garment, they’ll know it once belonged to a soldier, now a wearable artifact.”
By transforming military uniforms into works of art, she seeks to honor a chapter of heroism – one that, in today’s time of peace, no longer needs to wear the shadow of sorrow.
Rừng Mai collection stands as a quiet testament to that spirit. Mai Lam recalls: “I bought these soldier uniforms, then cut off the sleeves and stitched in lace, organza.” Colors once tied to resilience are now softened, reimagined through a feminine lens. Familiar uniforms are reborn – sometimes paired with brocade, sometimes replaced by organza light as mist.
After twenty quiet years of refining her craft alongside traditional artisans with three stepping stones in place, the Kim Long collection, her costume work for Địa Đạo, and Rừng Mai exhibition, Mai Lâm is ready to step into the light of the global fashion scene.
“The story I want the world to know about Mai Lâm is Vietnam. All About Vietnam,” she shares.
About Mai Lâm
Lâm Thi Kim Mai or Mai Lâm (born 1957), is a multidisciplinary artist born in Ho Chi Minh City. She emigrated to Australia in 1977 and returned to live and work in Vietnam in 1994
Mai Lâm makes things with her own hands, becoming a homemaker and a creator of art in her own right. A tomboy. A chef. A florist. A designer. 1 husband. 3 siblings. 5 children. 11 grandchildren.