DESIGNER SPOTLIGHT : A Seamless Blend : Newport Immigrant Fuses Vietnamese, Western Styles
The influence of Western style on traditional Vietnamese dress was visible on the runway at a fashion show featuring creations by Vietnamese designers.
Some models in the show at the Red Lion Hotel in Costa Mesa wore traditional Vietnamese tunic-style dresses of colorful silks over white pants. Others wore Western-style miniskirts with halter tops that revealed their midriffs or slinky column dresses that showed off bare backs and torsos.
Tami Trankiem, 40, a Newport Beach designer who immigrated from Vietnam in 1975, created many of the contemporary, body-conscious styles for the show.
“I modify the Vietnamese style to European clothing,” Trankiem says.
Trankiem’s mission is to bridge the gap between Vietnamese and Western cultures through fashion. One way she accomplishes that goal is by showing how Vietnamese and American styles can blend seamlessly.
For instance, when Vietnamese women work in the fields, they wear halter-style shirts that wrap around their torsos for support. Trankiem uses halter tops in her designs, but to a sexier end: She leaves the back bare, pairing the top with a sheer flowing pant. One of her creations features a white satin halter with a long, flowing skirt.
“This one could be for a California wedding,” she says.
She makes palazzo-style pants similar to the kind Vietnamese women wear under their tunics, but Trankiem’s are made out of sheer fabrics such as a black striped satin. She pairs her palazzos with little crop tops and short blouses.
The colorful silks that are so much a part of Vietnamese dress are used by Trankiem for Western-style designs, such as a blazer with matching miniskirt made of purple washed silk or a silk fuchsia mini-dress.
To help Vietnamese women gain visibility in the fashion world, Trankiem recruits them to wear her designs in her fashion shows.
She dreams of representing Vietnamese models. This year she’ll begin advertising in Vietnamese publications to act as a modeling agent, helping women participate in entertainment, shows and movies by hooking them up with an American modeling agency.
“I’d like to give the Vietnamese girl more exposure to the outside world,” she says. “Often they’re shy, and they have no connections. It’s all too new for them.”
Come spring, she hopes to start a Vietnamese fashion magazine to bring aspiring models and designers additional exposure.
“We’ll profile a designer every issue,” she says. “I want to market Vietnamese designs.”
For now, Trankiem supports herself and her three teen-age children by selling her fashions at charity shows that she often produces and by selling embroidered linens and other crafts to gift boutiques.
In November she organized a fashion show at the Grand Garden in Westminster to benefit Amerasian Support Services, a program offered through St. Anselm’s Cross-Cultural Community Center in Garden Grove.
She runs her clothing line, Tami’s, out of her home. Items in the line sell from $50 to $125, including evening wear.
“Organizing the fashion shows is one way to create a name and market my product. There’s no time to do it for fun anymore,” she says. “People keep calling me for more shows. I have the ability to put the clothes with the atmosphere.”
Trankiem has been designing clothes for 23 years, mostly as a hobby while she worked as a mortgage banker. About eight months ago, she dropped out of banking and decided to turn her lifelong dream of being a full-time designer.
“When I was 18 I took courses in sewing in Vietnam. God gave me talent. When I see something on the [TV] screen, I can make the pattern. I can look at a fabric and know what to make out of it. I have that imagination.
“I had seen a lot of sad scenes,” says Trankiem, who fled Vietnam during the war. She says she found relief in creating garments such as her gold Lycra evening gown with beaded trim or black crepe column dress with sequin trim.
“I like to look at pretty things,” Trankiem says.
