^{Vũ Thảo, Kilomet109’s founder and designer.}

Spatial place-making and care

Kilomet109’s localist priority is evident in its motto “fashion from the ground up.” This emphasis on spatiality is common in eco-chic, where the tie between ethics and locality is predicated upon the Marxist idea that global capitalism has alienated not only consumers and producers but also people and commodities through its space-time compression. Proponents of eco-chic thus believe that informing consumers how commodities are made will push back on this alienation and result in more ethical decisions. [4] Aligning with this ethos, Kilomet109 presents ample details about the material origins, technical processes, and artisan communities. Its product descriptions typically include the types of fiber and dye, artisans’ ethnicity and locations, and the techniques they use, such as White Tai handwoven cotton from Sơn La Province, Blue Hmong batik from Hoà Bình Province, Black Hmong stone-polishing from Lào Cai Province, Nùng An indigo and yam root dyeing from Cao Bằng Province. Artisans’ stories, both personal and collective, create a sense of connection, and thus de-alienation, between consumers and the artisans, while also revealing the brand’s close relationship with them.

Kilomet109 also frequently posts pictures and videos that document the fabric-making process, with explanations of the cultural histories of the techniques. These posts present materials as locally sourced and/or homegrown according to Indigenous traditions, such as organic cotton, hemp, and indigo cultivated at a household scale, and lac resin and dye yam roots foraged from local forests. For example, several posts described how Nùng An artisans in Cao Bằng used their Indigenous knowledge to sustainably harvest dye yam roots from local forests, taking only the older roots while leaving the younger ones to continue growing. Nùng An artisans reasoned that doing so would ensure both the sustainability and quality of the dye source, as dye yam roots can help the forest survive drought by keeping the soil well hydrated, and thus, the older roots yield deeper colors. Another post showed Nùng An artisans washing the freshly dyed fabrics in a small pond in a cave and explained that the artisans specifically choose this spot for its water quality, which helps to make the fabric more color-fast after dyeing. Such knowledge, as the designer interprets, demonstrates the artisans’ understanding and attachment to their local environment.

Nùng An artisans carrying yam root-dyed fabrics and descending to the washing pond in a cave.

Emphasizing Indigenous peoples’ ecological virtues has been a common marketing strategy to construct Southern spaces of production for Northern ethical consumption. [5] Similar to what anthropologist Alcida Ramos called “pulp fiction of indigenism,” articulating Indigenous peoples as the “ecological Other” lends credence to eco-chic branding. [6] Or, in the critical words of anthropologists Barendregt and Jaffe (2014): “What were previously deemed traditional and backward practices become popular among cosmopolitan elites across the world.” [7] In Vietnam, as elsewhere in Southeast Asia, these narratives signify a partial shift in the “regime of representation” of Indigenous highlanders, whose swiddening agriculture has been stigmatized as deforestation in the public discourse. [8]

At the same time, the recent discursive shift has brought to attention the value of Indigenous knowledge in the management of natural resources, thus raising public awareness of their role as environmental guardians—a view made popular by the global alliance of environmentalists and Indigenous activists in the 1990s. [9] As the dual discourse of environmentalism/indigeneity is an important strategy for Global South countries to secure financial aid from development agencies, this shift towards the global figure of the “Indigenous environmentalist” indicates Vietnam’s increasingly neoliberal integration, which followed the 1986 Economic Reform (Đổi Mới). [10] Designers’ work with Indigenous artisans in eco-fashion has certainly contributed to the rising popularity of this discourse in Vietnam.

Similar to Northern ethical consumption, Southern localism operates in two registers. Practically, reducing the geographical ambit of production is considered more sustainable compared to the capitalist time-space compression, as using local materials and labor can attune producers’ attention to ecological impact, as well as save costs and energy. Discursively, closing the geographical and social distance between producers and consumers through information is expected to elicit “caring at a distance” among consumers, who might shift their behaviors towards more ethical and “care-full” decisions. [11] Designer-activist and fashion scholar Kate Fletcher (2018) calls this practice “fashion land ethic,” which she considers necessary for sustainable fashion futures. [12]

Despites these commonalities, fashion localism in Vietnam’s postcolonial and post-socialist settings also embodies the nuanced translocality of “consumer nationalism,” a phenomenon that media and cultural analysis scholars Enric Castelló and Sabina Mihelj have discussed at length. [13] Kilomet109’s products are in fact not made in one location. Rather, different local cultures and traditions are interwoven into one garment. For example, to make the lining fabric for a jacket, cotton is organically grown and processed in Lâm Đồng, handwoven by White Thai weavers in Sơn La, and indigo-dyed with batik patterns by Blue Hmong artisans in Hoà Bình, while the hemp for the outer layer is grown, woven, indigo-dyed, and stone-calendered by Black Hmong women in Lào Cai. The fabric is then transported to Hanoi, the capital city where the brand is located, to be cut and made into finished products by a team of mostly Kinh (majority ethnic Viet) tailors. The brand characterizes this complex network of knowledge and labor as designed and made in Vietnam. As such, localism here functions at a national scale, rather than the usual local scale in the dichotomy of Southern production and Northern consumption. In other words, here localism and translocalism are mutually constitutive. [14] Like other multi-ethnic post-colonial states in Southeast Asia, the combination of various textile traditions in one product has been a strategy to materialize the state-endorsed discourse on multicultural nationhood. [15] As such, fashion place-making uses visual, material, and discursive tools to portray nationhood as an assemblage of multiple ethnicized spaces and direct consumers’ ethics of care towards their own compatriots rather than a distant international “Other.”

^{The Vang I jacket combines multiple material and technical loci.}

Such nationalist implication in eco-fashion is evident in Thảo’s story of how she first started to explore Indigenous textile traditions. While working as a fashion lecturer, she grew frustrated at the lack of pedagogical materials on Vietnamese textile and fashion traditions. Her urge to explore distinctively Vietnamese textile cultures thus undergirds her commitment to eco-fashion. For Thảo, the demeaning but unfortunately common view of Southern countries as locations of cheap labor rather than creativity erases the country’s diverse traditions of making textiles from the ground. Her desire to recenter these rich cultural histories has led her to work with ethnic minority communities. This merging of eco-chic into nation-making exemplifies a localized interpretation of eco-chic that selectively “reterritorializes” global discourses and practices to satisfy a growing domestic middle class. [16]

Temporal place-making and care

Besides spatiality, temporality is another important dimension of place-making in the green economy. As anthropologists Barendregt and Jaffe (2014) observe, the  “nostalgic gaze toward the allegedly slower, less complicated past combines with dreams of a future perfect” marks the appeal of eco-chic. [17] In the case of post-colonial Vietnam, temporality is highlighted through the discourse of “tradition,” which emphasizes historical continuity or revitalization of cultural knowledge from a perceived pre-colonial, pre-industrial past. Thảo’s designs, for example, use both “traditional” techniques from minority Indigenous groups and sartorial details of past Kinh (ethnic majority) garments. The pairing of techniques with Indigenous cultures in Kilomet109’s product descriptions also conveys a sense of cultural tradition. Thảo prioritizes the quality and continuity of her partnering artisans’ practices, but when a potential community does not meet all her requirements, mutual efforts can be made to “revive” certain traditions. In this sense, Kilomet109’s work parallels the state’s agenda of cultural preservation and revitalization.

The brand also highlights the intergenerationality of artisans’ communities. Aligning with the way most Indigenous artisans acquired their knowledge and skill, this type of content also produces a sense of historical continuity. The emphasis on the long history of said traditions valorizes the past as an antidote to the modern obsession with speed and a promise for sustainable futures. However, Thảo’s creative endeavors do not simply imitate this past. She connects different Indigenous practices in novel ways that differ from how things are done within the communities. For example, she commissions Hmong artisans in Hoà Bình Province to use their batik drawing to create dots and stripes that differ from their usual geometric patterns and look more “contemporary” to her and her clientele. In this sense, the past is no longer seen as the realm of the outdated and underdeveloped. Rather, it becomes the locus of authenticity and the inspiration of sustainability. As Indigenous practices become a different way of being modern, “the eco-chic provides an alternative to a unilateral Western definition of modernity.” [18] “Modernity” in this sense, no longer a Western monopoly, is locally appropriated and imbued with place-making narratives into “alternative modernities,” which both resist and fulfill Western expectations.

^{Traditional Hmong batik technique is applied to new patterns in a batik stripe dress and calendering hemp biker jacket, two of Kilomet109’s most iconic designs.}

Speed is another critical aspect of temporal place-making in a green economy. There has been no lack of lament over the contemporary obsession with speeding up in all aspects of life, a symptom of the capitalistic machine. The eco-chic ethos is then expected to counter this time-space compression with multiple versions of “slow living.” It is not a coincidence that alternative consumption is considered to have been set in motion by the 1980s Slow Food movement, which protested what sociologist George Ritzer called “the McDonaldization of society” in Italy. [19] Since then, slowing down has become a political act of resistance. Since the natural materials used in Kilomet109’s products are either homegrown or locally sourced, it relies on the local natural conditions each year and typically take months to grow and process. For example, while hemp generally takes three months from planting to harvesting, the arduous process of fiber-extracting, weaving, and softening requires significant time. This does not yet include the decorating part that involves the extra steps of batik resist-dyeing or hand-embroidery. The agricultural cycle of each Indigenous community also dictates the duration and time of textile-making. For most highland Indigenous groups, textile-making is not a specialized profession, but rather a common skill that every woman has to master, thus taking up a secondary place after farming. Therefore, they usually do it in their free time after farming and would only have extra time to focus on it after main crop harvests. While collaborating with fashion brands does require Indigenous artisans to increase their time and labor concentration, the use of handmaking techniques and the small number of capable artisans mean production cannot be significantly sped up or scaled up. These natural and cultural conditions combine to limit fabric production, which aligns with the temporal ethos of eco-fashion.

Cultivating a successful long-term partnership with Indigenous artisans might also take a long time. While those who purchase ready-made textiles connect with artisans on a commercial level, those who wish to apply their knowledge of natural materials and handmaking techniques into new designs need to find a much more intimate way to operate. This form of cooperation necessitates long-term trust building, as certain Indigenous communities either hold a wary attitude towards outsiders due to historical inter-ethnic tension, or find it too complicated to work with designers due to different working styles and aesthetics. Thảo has cultivated long-term relationships with her partnering artisans for years, some even prior to the brand’s establishment, and often spends a few months every year living with the communities to participate in textile-making. One popular example is indigo dyeing, which requires métis, the term political scientist James C. Scott used to describe the embodied, experiential knowledge that eludes verbal transmission and can only be acquired through practice over time. [20] In engaging with natural materials and the Indigenous communities who have the expertise to work with them, eco-fashion brands accept these conditions to slow down, whether speed is their priority in the first place or not.

Thảo joins Nùng An artisans in planting indigo crop in Cao Bằng Province.

Temporalized ethics of care advocate taking present time to care for past and future generations of both humans and non-humans. In fashion, object-oriented care is a strategy to extend use cycle and possibilities, thus reducing consumption. Thảo’s designs are well-known for their versatility and customizability. They are not only suitable for multiple occasions, but can also be worn in multiple ways. Allowing wearers both novelty and creativity, such garments encourage users to practice “craft of use,” a range of everyday practices of using and caring for garments that increase their versatility and life cycle, including mending, customizing, upcycling, and less damaging ways of laundry and storage. [21] Centered in the book of the same name by fashion scholar Kate Fletcher (2018), “craft of use” is theorized as a way to transform consumers into caretakers and commodities into belongings, thus creating a connection between them and interrupting the disposability convention of fast fashion.

The potential and limit of eco-fashion in Vietnam

In their discussion of eco-chic, political ecologists Raymond L. Bryant and Michael K. Goodman (2014) argued that eco-chic can be conveniently turned into “eco-social chic” through “spaces of intention” whose interrelations create “networks of intention that work to produce novel geographies of hope, care and responsibility.” [22] Indeed, the spatial and temporal productions of place in eco-fashion allow for a combination of environmental and social networks of intention that seek to include marginalized groups in the conversation of sustainability and practices of care. By recruiting Indigenous communities and their knowledge into its aesthetic and value regimes, the eco-fashion movement includes them in the discourse of environmentalism. It thus discursively shifts the hitherto dominant representation of them as “forest destroyers,” a prevalent figure in the hegemonic discourse about ethnic minorities in Vietnam, as elsewhere in Southeast Asia, that portrays their cultures as “backwards” to justify development projects aimed to “modernize” their ways of life. [23]

Moreover, by targeting domestic consumers instead of focusing solely on export, Vietnamese eco-fashion acknowledges the social and economic significance of its growing domestic middle class. Performing the ecological through the Indigenous figure thus kills two birds with one stone. On the one hand, it galvanizes domestic consumers’ loyalty through the discourse of “consumer nationalism,” instead of relying on foreign consumers whose geographical and social distance might not guarantee stable support. [24] In this domestic practice of care, the givers are not so affluent, and the recipients not so distant. On the other hand, it strives to make a place for Vietnam as a legitimate player on the international stage of both the creative economy and environmentalism. In other words, through the workings of eco-fashion, nature and nation become mutually constitutive.

However, “spaces of intention” are, after all, of intention and not always translatable into reality, as they rely on the production of borders that necessarily exclude. As mentioned above, there are certain qualities that Thảo looks for in her partnering communities: continuing traditions of making textiles from local natural materials, technical quality and applicability with new designs, and ideally, the involvement of different generations and fields of expertise from the same community. Although her collaborations have succeeded in highlighting the value of some Indigenous knowledge and its compatibility with modernity, communities who no longer maintain natural textile practices fail to make the cut. Cosmopolitan Kinh designers like Thảo thus remain in a privileged position to authorize Indigenous artisans’ participation depending on how well their practices fulfill market preferences. As several scholars have warned of sustainable fashion and consumption, the desire for quality in the green economy has sometimes inadvertently excluded the poorest and most marginal producers. [25] In this case, the marginalized groups are Indigenous communities who do not, or no longer, fit into the stereotype of “natural conservationists,” as termed by anthropologists Beth A. Conklin and Laura R. Graham (1995), due to the pressure to modernize from the state and the dominant society. [26]

A Blue Hmong artisan in her traditional attire standing in her hemp field in Hoà Bình Province.

Moreover, eco-fashion in Vietnam, as with other aspects of the green economy elsewhere, has not been able to escape the critiques about global capitalism. Critics have pointed out how this movement continues to focus on market mechanisms without really addressing how policies and corporations create and perpetuate these issues in the first place. [27]. As sociologist and political ecologist Sharon Zukin commented: “At the end of the day, eco-chic only tells consumers how to buy, but never says ‘Don't buy.’” [28]

Conclusion

As an important part of material culture, fashion can function as a political project in both its production and consumption. Since ethical or sustainable consumption emerged as a promising pathway to do green politics without having to rely on conventional politics, fashion has become a critical site of contention in this new permutation of environmentalism. By examining the material and discursive tools of place-making employed by Kilomet109, I have argued that their work relies on spatial and temporal place-making strategies to add a nation-making implication to the environmentalist agenda of eco-fashion. In their case, eco-fashion blurs the in-between nature and culture in its construction of place, thus simultaneously striving for decoloniality, multiculturalism, and creative economy as national development. However, much as it attempts to make space for Indigenous groups who have been negatively portrayed as environmental destroyers, eco-fashion brands such as Kilomet109 also inadvertently exclude those who do not fit into the ideal of the “natural conservationist.” Therefore, for eco-fashion to deliver its promises of ecological and social benefits, more critical and nuanced practices are necessary.

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Notes: Green Articulation

[1] Bart Barendregt and Rivke Jaffe, “The Paradoxes of Eco-Chic,” in Green Consumption: The Global Rise of Eco-Chic, eds. Bart Barendregt and Rivke Jaffe (London & New York: Routledge, 2014), 1-18.

[2] Mike Crang and Alex Hughes, “Globalizing Ethical Consumption,” Geoforum 67 (2015): 131-134.

[3] Erik Cohen, The Commercialized Crafts of Thailand: Hill Tribes and Lowland Villages (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000); Hjorleifur R. Jonsson and Nora A. Taylor, “National Colors: Ethnic Minorities in Vietnamese Public Imagery,” in Re-orienting Fashion: The Globalization of Asian Dress, eds. Sandra Niessen, Ann Marie Leshkowich, and Carla Jones (Oxford & Providence: Berg, 2003), 159-184; Louisa Schein, “Diasporic Media and Hmong/Miao Formulations of Nativeness and Displacement,” in Indigenous Experience Today, eds. Marisol de la Cadena and Orin Starn (Oxford & Providence: Berg, 2007), 225-247.

[4] Clive Barnett, Paul Cloke, Nick Clarke, and Alice Malpass, “Consuming Ethics: Articulating the Subjects and Spaces of Ethical Consumption,” Antipode 37 (2005): 23-45.

[5] Sharon Zukin, Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009); Raymond L. Bryant and Michael Goodman, “Peopling the Practices of Sustainable Consumption: Eco-chic and the Limits to the Spaces of Intention,” in Green Consumption: The Global Rise of Eco-Chic, eds. Bart Barendregt and Rivke Jaffe. (London & New York: Routledge, 2014): 37-55.

[6] Alcida Ramos, “Pulp Fictions of Indigenism,” in Race, Nature, and the Politics of Difference, eds. Donald S. Moore, Jake Kosek, & Anand Pandian (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003): 356–379; Tania M. Li, “Articulating Indigenous Identity in Indonesia: Resource Politics and the Tribal Slot,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 42, no. 1 (2000): 149–179.

[7] Barendregt and Jaffe, “The Paradoxes of Eco-Chic,” 2.

[8] Stuart Hall, “The Spectacle of the ‘Other’,” in Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, ed. Stuart Hall (London & Thousand Oaks: SAGE, 1997): 223-290.

[9] Beth A. Conklin and Laura R. Graham, “The Shifting Middle Ground: Amazonian Indians and Eco-Politics,” American Anthropologist 97, no. 4 (1995): 695-710.

[10] Ian G.  Baird, “The Construction of ‘Indigenous Peoples’ in Cambodia,” in Alterities in Asia: Reflections on Identity and Regionalism, ed. Leong Yew (London & New York: Routledge, 2011): 155–76.

[11] Barnett et al., “Consuming Ethics.”

[12] Kate Fletcher, “The Fashion Land Ethic: Localism, Clothing Activity, and Macclesfield,” Journal of Fashion Practice 10, no. 2 (2018): 139-159.

[13] Enric Castelló and Sabina Mihelj, “Selling and Consuming the Nation: Understanding Consumer Nationalism” Journal of Consumer Culture 18, no. 4 (2018): 558–76.

[14] Schein, “Diasporic Media,” 225-247.

[15] Ann Marie Leshkowich, “The Áo Dài Goes Global: How International Influences and Female Entrepreneurs Have Shaped Vietnam’s ‘National Costume,’” in Re-Orienting Fashion: The Globalization of Asian Dress, eds.  Sandra Niessen, Ann Marie Leshkowich, and Carla Jones (Oxford: Berg, 2003), 79-115; Yuka Matsumoto, “Indonesian Fashion Designers: Transformation from Traditional Textiles,” Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings (2004): 71-78; Carol Ireson-Doolittle and Geraldine Moreno-Black, “Fashioning Lao Identity: Textiles, Representation and the Grand Fashion Show,” The Journal of Lao Studies special issue (2015): 82–97; Conklin and Graham, “The Shifting Middle Ground,” 695-710.

[16] Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987).

[17] Barendregt and Jaffe, “The Paradoxes of Eco-Chic,” 11.

[18] Barendregt and Jaffe, “The Paradoxes of Eco-Chic,” 5.

[19] William McCuaig, Carlo Petrini, and Alice Waters, Slow Food: The Case for Taste (White River Junction: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2001); George Ritzer, The McDonaldization of Society (Newbury Park: Pine Forge Press, 1993).

[20] James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 309-341.

[21] Kate Fletcher, Craft of Use: Post-Growth Fashion (London & New York: Routledge, 2016).

[22] Bryant and Goodman, “Peopling the Practices,” 38.

[23] Hoàng Cầm and Phạm Quỳnh Phương. Diễn ngôn, chính sách & sự biến đổi văn hoá – sinh kế tộc người (Discourse, policy, and change in ethnic cultures and livelihoods) (Hanoi: World Press, 2012); Pamela McElwee, Forests are Gold: Trees, People, and Environmental Rule in Vietnam (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2016); Tim Forsyth and Andrew Walker. Forest Guardians, Forest Destroyers: The Politics of Environmental Knowledge in Northern Thailand. Culture, Place, and Nature. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2008); Peter Vandergeest and Nancy Lee Peluso, “Political Violence and Scientific Forestry: Emergencies, Insurgencies, and Counterinsurgencies in Southeast Asia,” in Knowing Nature: Conversations at the Interaction of Political Ecology and Science Studies, eds. Mara J. Goldman, Paul Nadasdy, and Matthew D. Turner (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011), 152-166.

[24] Castelló and Mihelj, “Selling and Consuming the Nation,” 558-576.

[25] Otto von Busch, “‘What is to be sustained?’: Perpetuating Systemic Injustices through Sustainable Fashion,” Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy 18, no. 1 (2022): 400-409; Sharon Zukin, “Afterword: From Eco-chic to Eco-smart,” in Green Consumption: The Global Rise of Eco-Chic, eds. Bart Barendregt and Rivke Jaffe (London & New York: Routledge, 2014): 164-166.

[26] Beth A. Conklin and Laura R. Graham, “The Shifting Middle Ground,” 695-710; Hoàng and Phạm 2012, “Diễn ngôn, chính sách & sự biến đổi.”

[27] Otto von Busch, “‘What is to be sustained?’,”400-409.

[28] Sharon Zukin, “Afterword,” 164-166.