Vu Quynh Anh
…Before I understood collections, margins, or consumer behavior, I knew the feeling of fabric between my fingers.
I knew the quiet before a fitting, the rush before a show, and the way one small detail could completely change how a garment felt.
Fashion was never introduced to me as a subject to study.
It was simply there.
And somewhere along the way, I began wondering what I could make of it myself.
Heritage
WHERE I FIRST LEARNED TO SEE
Some people remember childhood through places, I remember mine through textures.
Fashion entered my life through my parents long before it became something I could call an interest of my own.
My mother - Ha Bui, built SOHEE by turning her instinct for clothing into something much larger - a business shaped by design, customers, and the countless small decisions behind every collection. I grew up watching her move easily between the creative and practical sides of fashion: touching fabrics, adjusting details, listening to customers, then returning to the drawing board.
My father - Khanh Pham, came to fashion from a different direction. Having spent much of his life in the United States, he brought home another visual language - one shaped by Western tailoring, but always considered through the proportions and preferences of Asian wearers.
Their approaches were different...
What stayed with me was the same idea:
FASHION COULD TRAVEL - BETWEEN PEOPLE, PLACES, AND CULTURES -WITHOUT LOSING THE PERSON WEARING IT
I was never interested in making tradition look “modern.” I wanted to understand how it could continue living.
That question led me to Kim Hoang folk art.
What first caught my attention was its visual language - bold colors, expressive figures, familiar symbols. What kept me there was its history. A tradition once nearly lost, slowly brought back into view.
I began wondering what another kind of revival could look like.
Where fabric learn to move
Before I ever designed a garment of my own, I spent years learning how one comes alive.
From Grade 4 to Grade 11, the runway became one of my earliest ways of understanding fashion - through movement, posture, rhythm, and the quiet transformation that happens when fabric meets a body. Over 8 years, that journey carried me through 10 runway appearances across 5 countries, working with 8 designers and brands across Vietnamese áo dài, contemporary collections, and international children’s fashion.
One of the moments I remember most vividly was in Qingdao, where I earned runway placements for Gucci Kids and Miss Sixty through an international casting of more than 2,000 young models.
Behind every few minutes on stage were hours of fittings, rehearsals, quick changes, and tiny adjustments. Slowly, I began to understand that fashion was never meant to stay still.
Years later, when I started creating garments of my own, that lesson stayed with me:
“A piece of clothing is only half-finished until someone gives it movement, presence, and a life of its own”
Kim Hoang Reborn
Quỹ Hồi Sinh Kim Hoàng (Kim Hoang Reborn Fund) was born somewhere within the 700 hours it took to create my first fashion collection.
Before there was a garment, there were days spent looking closely. I returned again and again to old Kim Hoang paintings — tracing the strength of their woodblock lines, the warmth of hand-painted color, and the small imperfections that made each image feel alive.
Then came the experiments. Sketches became fabric tests. Flat images were translated into embroidery, layered details, and hand-applied embellishments. Across more than 700 hours of research, sketching, sampling, stitching, embroidering, and finishing, Kim Hoang gradually moved from an image I admired into a language I was learning to speak — the “Kim Hoang Heritage” collection.
What began as a personal creative experiment found its way into exhibition spaces and public conversations, including coverage by Ngoisao.VnExpress. Through the fund, 100% of the project’s revenue was committed to social-impact initiatives supporting dialysis patients and disadvantaged children.
What needed to remain untouched, and what might take on a new form.
Then came the experiments.
Sketches became fabric tests. Flat images were translated into embroidery, layered details, and hand-applied embellishments. Lines once carved into wood had to learn how to follow the movement of a body. Colors that had lived on paper had to find a different rhythm on cloth.
Some ideas stayed close to their origins. Others changed many times before they felt right.
Across more than 700 hours of research, sketching, sampling, stitching, embroidering, and finishing, Kim Hoang gradually moved from an image I admired into a language I was learning to speak in my own way — the “KIM HOANG HERITAGE” COLLECTION.
“KIM HOANG HERITAGE” COLLECTION | By Quynh Anh x Kim Hoang Reborn Fund
“Kim Hoang Heritage” collection, showcased at “Hoa Guom” – an exhibition featuring six distinct art spaces created by young artists under the theme “Art as the Language of Expression”.
What began as a deeply personal creative experiment slowly found its way beyond the studio – first into exhibition spaces, then into conversations, young audiences, and the hands of those who chose to carry the story with them. As Kim Hoang Reborn moved further into public view, its story caught the attention of Ngoisao.VnExpress, which featured the collection for its contemporary reinterpretation of Vietnamese folk heritage through fashion.
The deeper I went into the history of Kim Hoang, the more conscious I became of what it meant to create from something that had survived generations. I did not want the story to end when the last stitch was made – or when the collection was sold. If heritage had given my work its meaning, I wanted the value created from that work to keep moving.
That thought became the beginning of the Kim Hoang Reborn Fund…
Through the fund, 100% of the project’s revenue was committed to social-impact initiatives supporting dialysis patients and disadvantaged children.
A glimpse at the project through numbers:
Vẽ Mâm
“Vẽ Mâm” began with a conversation with my mother about Thanh Hóa — her hometown, and my maternal roots.
Through her stories of familiar places, landscapes, and memories, I discovered Vẽ Mâm — painting stories onto traditional round wooden trays. The circular form felt like a natural frame for memory, giving me a new way to reinterpret the places connected to my family.
From old gates and architecture to fishing boats and quiet landscapes, each piece became a small portrait of Thanh Hóa — seen through memory, story, and my own imagination.
FEATURED PORTFOLIO: VẼ MÂM — FRAGMENTS OF HOME
Projects
The Fashionomics began with a simple question:
“What happens when fashion is viewed through value, behavior, and business - not just style?”
As President, I led a 15-member team in turning that question into research, case studies, surveys, and hands-on workshops on pricing, sustainability, and consumer behavior.
The Fashionomics became a space to question fashion beyond what appears on the surface.
LEARNING TO MAKE IDEAS WORK AT SCALE
At Youngpreneurs Ecosystem Vietnam, I began seeing business beyond individual ideas - as a system of people, resources, deadlines, and decisions that all had to move together.
01 — BUILDING AT SCALE
Through the Launchpad Business Challenge and Young CEO Summer Camp, I worked behind the scenes of large-scale student entrepreneurship programs, managing budgets, sponsorships, and financial planning. I helped oversee a 90M VND master budget, secured 54M VND from 8 partners, evaluated 50+ student ventures, and later supported a 150M VND operating budget for a six-day business incubator serving nearly 200 students.
These experiences taught me that finance was not simply about keeping numbers in balance - it was about deciding where limited resources could create the most value.
02 — FINANCE IN MOTION
At Smart Money Summer Camp, that perspective shifted from managing money to helping others make decisions with it. I supported 100 student investors across five asset classes and helped structure an investment simulation using 3B VND in simulated capital.
Watching teams respond differently to risk, opportunity, and uncertainty made finance feel much more human. Behind every allocation was a choice - and behind every choice, a different way of thinking about value.
CREATING SPACE TO BELONG
At Trăng Khuyết, I learned that inclusion often begins with something very simple: creating a space where every child feels comfortable enough to participate in their own way.
As Vice President, I helped coordinate 15 student volunteers across 6 community activities for children with autism and special needs, using music, movement, games, and art as different ways to connect. Alongside organizing activities, I also supported budgeting, donations, and student-led fundraising through artwork and handmade products. Together, these efforts helped increase the project’s charity fund by 50%, allowing us to continue expanding activities and resources for the children we worked with.
Trăng Khuyết taught me that impact does not always arrive loudly - sometimes it begins with making someone feel seen.
WHEN ART BECOMES A PLACE TO PAUSE
Hồn ta trên ngón tay was a project I had the chance to build alongside my younger sister - Ha Anh. Sharing the journey with someone so close to me made the project feel especially personal - a space where we could explore together how art might help people slow down, reflect, and express what they could not always put into words.
As Vice President, I helped organize a 5-session painting workshop series for 100+ participants and 3 thematic webinars reaching 200+ online attendees. Behind those experiences, I also worked on budgeting, operations, speaker coordination, and digital marketing - learning how thoughtful planning could make a creative space feel effortless for the people inside it.
The paintings created through the project later travelled beyond the workshops, with selected works showcased at Hoạ Gươm exhibition alongside Kim Hoang Heritage. Seeing these two very different creative journeys share the same exhibition space became a quiet reminder that art can carry both personal emotion and cultural memory.
The project showed me another side of creativity: one where the value of art is not measured by what it becomes, but by what it allows someone to feel. Sometimes making something is simply another way of understanding yourself.
Internship
BEHIND THE BEAUTY OF BUSINESS
Growing up around SOHEE, I had always seen the creative side of fashion - the fabrics, the designs, and the excitement of a new collection. But during my internship, I began looking at something I had rarely paid attention to: the numbers behind it all.
Working with sales records, product costs, and showroom expenses, I analyzed over 150 products, explored how discounts affected revenue, and examined the small decisions that shaped a garment’s profitability. I also developed cost-saving recommendations and translated my findings into a financial presentation.
For the first time, I began to understand how much careful planning it took to bring a collection from the drawing board to the showroom. I learned that behind every beautiful piece was a series of decisions that made its existence possible.
BEYOND WORDS, THROUGH CREATIVITY
At Dau Nhi, I discovered a different side of creativity.
Working with children with developmental delays, I helped organize small-group activities through drawing, music, crafts, and movement. Three times a week, I prepared materials, supported interactive sessions, and observed how each child responded differently to the same activity.
Some engaged through colors, others through rhythm or simple movements. I began to understand that there was no single way to participate, communicate, or express oneself.
The experience reminded me that creativity did not always have to result in something beautiful to look at. Sometimes, its greatest value was simply giving someone another way to be heard.
Research
THE PRICE OF WHAT WE VALUE
I had spent years around clothes, watching people fall in love with pieces for reasons that were not always easy to explain. Some were drawn to a beautiful design. Others cared about the name on the label, the feeling of the fabric, or simply the excitement of finding something at a good price.
But one question stayed with me: “Why could a lower price make one piece more desirable, yet make another feel less valuable?”
That curiosity became the starting point of my research. Under the mentorship of Mentor Luong Tuan Anh, I explored how pricing, product quality, brand reputation, shopping experiences, and emotions shape the choices people make between fast fashion and accessible luxury.
Working with 293 respondents and 2,051 consumer choice sets, I learned to look beyond what consumers said they preferred and examine the trade-offs reflected in their decisions. Through conditional logit, willingness-to-pay, and latent-class analysis, we identified two different ways of perceiving value: 53% of consumers were more price-functional, while 47% were more brand-experiential.
What fascinated me most was that the same discount could tell two completely different stories. In fast fashion, it could make a purchase feel worthwhile. In luxury, it could change the very perception of what made a product special.
Our findings were published in the EPRA International Journal of Economic and Business Review, Vol. 14, Issue 8.
The research changed the way I looked at the price tags I had seen all my life.
“A price was never just a number. It was also a reflection of what people believed something was worth.”
A GLIMPSE AT THE RESEARCH THROUGH NUMBERS
- 293 survey respondents
- 2,051 valid consumer choice sets
- 53% price-functional consumers
- 47% brand-experiential consumers
- 1 published research paper
Awards
LEARNING TO THINK BEYOND THE IDEA
I used to think a good idea was one that could immediately capture someone’s attention.
But through business competitions, I began to see things differently. Behind every promising idea were questions about people, value, and whether it could actually work beyond the pitch.
Each experience challenged me to think a little further, question a little more, and see business from a different perspective.
A FEW MILESTONES ALONG THE WAY
- 01. Gold Medal - One Billion Impacts | Certificate 2026
- 02. Top 20% International Finalist - Harvard Crimson Business Competition | Qualification 2025
- 03. Top 12 - Global Highschool Business Competition | Pitch deck | Certificate 2026 Finsea, An AI-native financial education platform combining bite-sized learning, AI simulations, and personalized career guidance to help young people connect financial knowledge with real-world decisions
- 04. Top 3 - Model Shark Tank Vietnam | 2026
- 05. Best Debate Team Member - Money Maze Season 2: The Debate Arena | Certificate February 2026
- 06. Top 20 Finalist - Money Maze Season 3: GenZ Innovation Hackathon | Certificate June 2026
Looking back, the awards were milestones, but the questions stayed with me longer.
“I learned that a strong idea is not always about having the right answer, but knowing what to ask next”
Thank you!
For more enquiries, please contact me:
Email: lili060509@gmail.com | Phone: 1-832-877-0735