Fashion / Sustainability
Friendship through fashion, from Bristol to Vietnam
A clothing company based both in Vietnam and Easton is raising awareness of how clothing is made and tradition Mien skills.
Launched by Hannah Cowie in 2014, Tamay & Me puts the Mien community, a marginalised minority group in the south east Asian country, in the spotlight, showcasing their tailoring skills.
Although founded seven years ago in its current form, Hannah has been working with Tamay, who lives in Vietnam and runs the production side of the business, since 2008.
is needed now More than ever
Tamay and Hannah spent three months working on one tiny piece of embroidery. and became great friends. Since then, the pair have been helping women to earn a sustainable living and to maintain their textile heritage.
“Their clothing has been so important as a way to stay strong and connected to each other and the land,” says Hannah, who lives in Lockleaze.
“Tamay and her community have always made all their own clothes, even grown the cotton.
“We want to share this incredible knowledge and create an income for as many makers as we can to take these skills into the future and with it their culture.”
Tamay looks after production in Vietnam. Photo: Tamay & Me
Tamay and Hannah now sell jackets, cushions and accessories. While Hannah runs the sales in Pennywell Studios with assistant Eliza England, Tamay runs the production side of the company.
She manages the teams working on dyeing and sewing, and delivers cloth, buttons and embroidery panels on a motorbike to different members of the production team.
“We have a couple who are dear friends of Tamay’s who make all the field jackets,” adds Hannah. “Chu does all the machine sewing and Man May does all the hand stitching.
“They have been working with us for six years now and we are committed to making sure we can keep up the work for them and all the others in the team.”
Through Tamay & Me, Hannah hopes to promote a more sustainable way of buying and wearing clothes and help people to connect to the way their clothing is made.
In Vietnam, especially in the mountains of north Vietnam, near Sapa and the Chinese border, Hannah hopes that the work she and Tamay run helps to inspire younger generations of the Mien community to keep making and me proud of their heritage.
“Tamay and I are a good team,” says Hannah.
“We are not a standard fashion label; we work with what we have. We don’t do seasons. We make good quality clothing as it has been made for over 500 years.”
Main photo: Tamay & Me
Read more: Make sustainable change and support Bristol’s female fashion designers
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