Vietnamese fashion designers don’t seem to be making the most of the huge domestic market or making a splash overseas.

While many are happy with the local fashion industry’s recent developments, local fashion products don’t sell well at home or abroad.

In fact, the industry has been struggling to develop in the past 10 years.

Fashion shows are staged but most of them are merely for fun and do little to help develop the fledgling industry.

Most of the shows feature insipid collections that don’t leave a strong impression.

Even when shows are said to meet world standards, the fashions fall short of consumers’ expectations and are alien to local styles and tastes.

The reasons are varied.

According to insiders, Vietnamese designers’ styles and most fashion shows such as Tuan le thoi trang Viet Nam (Vietnam Fashion Week) and Dep Fashion Show (Beautiful Fashion Show) are heavily influenced by global trends and thus are not aimed to please local tastes.

The designs are also not practical, as most designers, especially the young, like to create impressive collections that are suitable for the catwalk, not the street.

According to renowned designer Sy Hoang, Vietnam’s wearable fashion, which is more popular than the high-fashion designs, is poorly developed in Vietnam, and nowhere near globally competitive.

Meanwhile, shows at Vietnamese product fairs put on by the Vietnam Textile Corporation feature a very limited range.

Dang Minh Hanh, head of the Fadin Fashion Institute in Ho Chi Minh City, blamed the slow development of the Vietnamese fashion industry on the small number of local designers.

“Vietnam is among the world’s leading countries in exporting textile and garment products and the local fashion industry has the advantage of a large domestic market with climbing incomes,” Hanh said. “But the industry remains feeble.

“We don’t have enough talented designers and it’s estimated that only 20 percent of fashion design graduates from local universities and those who win design competitions are good enough to become professional designers,” she said.

“Besides, most of our materials are imported and the lack of materials has limited the creativity of local designers.”

A number of designers merely copy designs from their colleagues and foreign counterparts and few have their own styles.

“Our recent fashion products are only about 30 percent original while 70 percent are copied from other countries,” Hanh said.

Some collections by top designers like Sy Hoang and Vo Viet Chung may compete with famous international brands, but their brands are not properly commercialized or marketed, she added.

Most designers prefer setting up their own shop or company rather than working for a large fashion or textile company.

Most of these small operators do not effectively create their own trademark due to a lack of funding, know-how and marketing.

Grim outlook

This year’s global economic downturn has adversely affected the local economy and the Vietnamese textile and garment industry is facing a troubled year.

Textile and garment exports in the last 10 months were worth only US$7.7 billion.

The industry body set an export target of $9.5 billion for this year and $11.5 billion for 2009, but these targets appear unlikely to be met.

Sales are slow at fashion stores and commercial centers at present, even though goods are being heavily discounted, as Vietnamese consumers tighten their belts because of the difficult economic times.

The local garment industry is also facing fierce competition from cheap products from China, the Republic of Korea and Thailand, which make a diverse range of designs that have captured a large share of Vietnam’s market.

Meanwhile, local garment companies are not doing themselves any favors, churning out limited designs, poor quality products and using inadequate distribution systems.

Only a few brands have secured a strong base, leaving plenty of room for international brands and knock-offs.

So, the circle is repeated: the lack of qualified designers leads to poor-quality products which sell poorly domestically and internationally.

“The local fashion market seems to be getting even quieter with only a few shows, which are mainly designed to promote consumer goods instead of guiding consumer habits and setting fashion trends. To make things worse, such shows are going to be cut by 40 percent by the end of the year and maybe more than that in 2009,” said renowned designer Ngo Thai Uyen, director of N.T.U Design Co.

Reported by Do Tuan