Hello! Kindly introduce yourself.
Hello! I am Darren Chew, the founder of District Eight - a lifestyle
furnishing brand based in Vietnam since 2010. The company has grown into
an integrated studio, development team and factory (including wood, metal
and upholstery working capacities). We have aimed from the start to elevate
the workmanship of the manufacture and to develop collections that can
achieve the highest quality standards while maintaining a handcrafted finish.
What brought about your fascinations with industrial design and
furniture-making?
I have been mainly inspired by our environment here in HCMC, where
I’ve been living for almost 20 years. Old HCMC is a mix of colonial and
modernist architecture which, due to the fast modernization of Ho Chi Minh
City, is being replaced with skyscrapers.
Those old buildings—created, furnished and used with purpose and
quality—were made to last a lifetime. That is the ethos we like to apply to
furniture-making, where we try to work with the best materials available to
create products with an old-world quality.
What is the studio's design philosophy? How is this manifested in your
product portfolio?
Our design approach stems from the three distinct historical influences in
modern Vietnam: the French colonial period, modernist architecture influenced by
the time before the war with America, and Saigon’s current drive into being
a modern city. You can see those influences layering the collection.
What made Vietnam the perfect place to create handmade furniture
pieces? How easy or difficult was it to set up shop in Ho Chi Minh City?
I don’t think we could have done this anywhere else. HCMC still
maintains a massive ecosystem of small enterprises, with hand-work skills lost
or not commercially viable elsewhere. Our luck was bringing together the
right people who were willing to learn and strive for better quality, leading
to the relative success of our products around the world. I think the challenge
has been to educate and build the team in a market without the design and quality
influence. It is not hard, but it does take time.
Are there any special processes distinct to District Eight employed in the
creation of its furniture pieces?
The processes are quite straightforward. We would not say there is a secret
ingredient, a hidden step that sets us apart. Everyone is actually welcome to visit our
factories. However, we do have a distinct way of caring about each of those steps.
Our process, from design to the last steps of manufacturing, is designed
to obtain our signature finish. We make sure that our idea of a product (which is
hopefully distinct from others) will be produced wholeheartedly and with high
fidelity. There is a human touch at every step of the way.
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