The Archive
For a long time, the Vietnamese narrative at international film festivals was largely defined by what the West expected us to talk about. This year, the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) tells a different story. The Vietnamese and diaspora filmmakers featured in the 2026 lineup are not answering old questions; they are asking new ones, […]
If the opening day of Global Fashion Collective’s NYFW takeover was a geographical mapping of cultural roots, Day 2 was an exploration of how those roots evolve. Across the runway, designers abandoned the idea of identity as a static monument. Instead, they presented the self as something in constant, thrilling flux, a state of transition, […]
For fashion lovers around the globe, there is something deeply revered about watching a designer step onto a major international stage. It has become a ritual to watch these global showcases unfold, waiting for those rare, transcendent moments when a designer refuses to simplify their heritage for Western eyes, offering instead a brilliant, uncompromising dialogue […]
Photo courtesy of Phương Mỹ Chi From a young girl known for her folk songs, Phương Mỹ Chi has gradually grown into one of Vietnam’s young artists committed to bringing Vietnamese culture into contemporary music. Nearly three years after Vũ Trụ Cò Bay, Phương Mỹ Chi returns with Dân Chơi Dân Ca – a new […]
There is a particular image that stays with you from the Soul of Vietnam Festival’s Runway on the Waterfront: Vietnamese áo dài against the backdrop of Victoria’s Inner Harbour, the mountains behind, the water in front, the crowd pressing close along the edges of the stage. It is not an image you would have predicted. […]
By mid-morning on Aug. 16, 2026, Ship Point was already becoming something else. The Inner Harbour, familiar to most Victorians as a backdrop for whale-watching boats and tourist foot traffic, had been transformed into a Vietnamese cultural village stretching from the waterfront to the festival boundary, with the smell of broth and lemongrass drifting across […]
by Vand Magazine Editorial Team The Greek-American designer arrived at Vancouver Fashion Week FW26 with The Jungle Feveress, a collection that is messy, torn, stained, and unapologetically alive. Fresh from winning Best New Designer at Athens Fashion Week for The Reigning Balkan Princess, Chantal brought her signature “Balkan maximalism” across the Atlantic, proving that imperfection […]
by Vand Magazine Editorial Team There is a Japanese art form called Kintsugi, the practice of repairing shattered ceramics with gold lacquer, transforming fractures into luminous seams. The broken object does not pretend it was never damaged. Instead, it declares: I have been broken, and I am more beautiful for it. This is the philosophy […]
by Vand Magazine Editorial Team Vancouver Fashion Week FW26 begins not with spectacle, but with precision. Richard Wei, the Canadian designer chosen to set the tone for the season, arrives with City Lights—a collection that refuses the expected narrative of “Canadian fashion” and instead offers something far more complex: a study of duality, luminosity, and […]
by Vand Magazine Editorial TeamAo Miyasaka brings “Death to Violence” to New York Fashion Week—a funeral for the past and a manifesto for the future. New York Fashion Week is often a spectacle of aspiration—a place where dreams are sold in silk and sequins. But for Ao Miyasaka, a 2000-born creator representing the new wave […]
