ÁCCENTED

Kathy Minh Bach


Listen Later

Fashion designer and entrepreneur Kathy Minh Bach converses with hosts Viet Thanh Nguyen and Philip Nguyen about her clothing brand, KAAREM


ABOUT THE GUEST:

Kathy Minh Bạch is a co-founder of Kaarem, a contemporary design brand based in Saigon, California and New York. Kathy was born in San Jose, CA, just four months after her parents arrived from the Bataan refugee camp in the Philippines. She was raised on bún riêu, New Wave music, Hong Kong cinema, and Paris by Night. Kathy studied architecture at UC Berkeley where she co-founded the Southeast Asian Student Coalition in 2000 and met her cohort of friends, collaborators and partners who continue to be the foundation of her community today.
Kathy started her career in e-commerce, but sought a more meaningful and personal way to connect her life’s work with her passions: community, design and culture. Since 2013, she has focused her efforts on Kaarem and scaling its business sustainably through its own design and production studio located in Bình Thạnh District in Saigon. Kaarem’s ethos is grounded in the preservation and celebration of artisanal and craft techniques, including Kaarem’s use of the blind hem stitch (where no seams are visible on the exterior) inspired by the construction of an áo dài. In 2020, Kaarem opened Que, a retail concept space, also in Bình Thạnh and just a few blocks from where her dad grew up.


This episode is sponsored by AppLovin. AppLovin’s leading marketing platform provides developers a powerful set of solutions to grow their mobile apps. AppLovin’s technology platform enables developers to market, monetize, analyze and publish their apps. The company’s first-party content includes over 200+ popular, engaging apps and its technology brings that content to millions of users around the world. AppLovin is headquartered in Palo Alto, California with several offices globally. Learn more at ⁠applovin.com⁠.

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

ÁCCENTEDBy Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network