Long Nguyen woke up at 5am on the first day of the shoot and drove a rented scooter to the Binh Tay market. By the time the crew arrived, he had found the perfect light — the haze of early HCMC morning that makes everything look like a memory.
The collection is called Acubi — a reference to the Korean aesthetic subculture that has filtered down through Vietnam's fashion underground. But Long is not interested in imitation. The silhouettes are oversized in a way that references the Vietnamese ao dai, deconstructed at the seams and raw at the hem. The fabrics are locally sourced: a cotton-blend knit from a mill in Binh Duong province that Long has been working with since his first collection.
"I want people to wear these and feel like they belong somewhere," he says, adjusting the lapel on a sheer organza jacket that somehow manages to look both fragile and architectural. "Not Korea. Not Paris. Here."
The shoot spans three locations across HCMC — the rooftops of District 3, the alleyways of Cho Lon, and the concrete banks of the Saigon River at dusk. Photographer Mai Thi Thu captures it all with a medium-format film camera, the grain adding texture that digital cannot replicate.
The Acubi Knit and Sheer Layer Jacket from this collection are available now on CCC.
