Vietnamese fashion brands wither away as designs remain stagnant

Seeing a dress at Zara, Ngan, a bank officer, promptly decided to buy it for her daughter’s birthday, though the product was priced at VND800,000.

The same amount of money could buy three Vietnamese-made products. However, she chose the dress as she really liked the new design.

Ngan’s choice shows a growing tendency in Vietnam: youth are willing to spend big money to buy foreign-made products instead of Vietnamese. 

 This coincides with a Nielsen report which shows that Vietnamese rank third in the world, after China and India, in terms of passion for branded goods.

 Vietnamese fashion brands, such as Foci of Nguyen Tam Fashion Company, NinoMaxx of Thoi Trang Viet, BlueExchange of Xanh Co Ban Fashion, and PT2000 of Pham Tuong 2000 Company, once controlled the domestic market in early 2000.

 Of these, Foci has disappeared, and others have lost their positions in the market.

 Launched in 1999, Foci reaped big success in the mid-end market segment. Just eight years after the establishment day, it had 60 shops in large cities. However, it had to leave the market six years later in 2012 because of the landing of abnormally cheap Chinese products.

 Meanwhile, Ninomaxx, Viet Thy and BlueExchange have struggled. Thoi Trang Viet’s network, which once had 200 shops across the country, has shrunk, and it had to ‘declare death’ for Maxx Style, one of the three product lines targeting low-end customers.

 Meanwhile, on May 10, Viet Tien and An Phuoc, the other strong brands, began mostly operating in the small market segment of products for office workers.

 “Vietnamese fashion companies need more money and a character of their own,” said Le Tien Truong, CEO of Vinatex, when asked how to help Vietnamese brands survive the competition with foreign brands.

 “Vietnam is capable of making the types of products that Zara or H&M are selling in the Vietnamese market at the production cost just equal to 60%. However, the problem lies in the positioning of Vietnam’s fashion industry on the world’s map,” he said.

 According to Truong, there are three groups in the world market, including powerful economies like the US, cultural center with deep value like Italy and France, and markets with specific character like Japan and the Republic of Korea.

 Truong said the problem is that Vietnamese companies have not found the way to create their original character.