The sedge transforms brilliantly

Recently, sometimes on famous fashion shows, Vietnamese tourism promotion programs often appear handbags, conical hats or other unique women's accessories.

Hue farmers harvest sedge to make handicrafts - Photo: NGOC THUAN

Very few people know that these luxury items, costing millions, are made from wild sedge.

Ho Suong Lan, a Hue woman, has had a miraculous journey to bring the lagoon plant to a new level. Shaking off the mud from the swamp, each strand of sedge is polished, woven and transformed into a brilliant, elegant shape in handbags, conical hats and makeup accessories worth millions.

From wild plants growing on the edge of fields

Ms. Ho Suong Lan (42 years old) is not from the alum swamp area in Phong Dien ( Thua Thien Hue ) but has an understanding of the farmers here. Phong Binh commune (Phong Dien district) has a famous Pho Trach mattress weaving village in the past. Seeing weeds growing over rice, instead of pulling them out, people brought them home to dry, bruise them, and weave them into bags, mats, mattresses...

But the fate of this weed is only around the village, the poor rural markets. In 2020, a woman came to ask the villagers. No one thought that this person had changed the fate of the sedge.

Ms. Lan said she started her career as a tour guide and had a small travel agency, but everything came to a standstill when COVID-19 hit. During her trip to Indonesia, when she saw her wearing a conical hat of a Hue woman, many people were curious and asked questions and complimented her beauty.

The story of the conical hat in Indonesia and the image of the decline in the Pho Trach craft village later urged Ms. Lan to return to meet the farmers, to listen to the concerns of generations of not being able to bring the sedge woven cloth out of the village market. And she began to act...

Sedge "changes the fate of poor countryside"

Sedge transformed into beautiful products - Photo: BD

In her gallery and workshop on Chu Van An Street (Hue City), Ms. Lan and her staff including designers, artists, packagers, printers, tailors, and livestreamers... work continuously to keep up with orders.

50km away, dozens of farmers in Ms. Lan’s team in Phong Dien were also diligently cutting sedge and tending to each field. In front of their house, they gathered to dry and weave rough mats to send to the workshop. Everything worked like a rhythmic machine, perfectly assembling each stage.

Ms. Lan said that since the COVID-19 pandemic, consumer thinking has clearly shifted. Consumers tend to prioritize environmentally friendly products of natural origin. In particular, the production chain of goods must demonstrate its support for disadvantaged communities.

Initially, when thinking of making items from sedge fibers, Ms. Lan went to Pho Trach to buy raw materials from farmers and then reprocessed them. In the first month, the sales volume was only 15 million VND. Although small, this was a signal of response from the market.

Ms. Lan saw her own opportunity to start a new journey and invited artists, designers, and media to join the journey of transforming the sedge fiber. The following month, total sales of the items jumped to 300 million.

In just one short year since the first time she started using sedge, a production chain starting from farmers in Phong Dien and ending with fashionable, high-spending customers was formed. Ho Suong Lan rented a house in the center of Hue to use as a workshop, and young artists and designers from Hue College of Arts were invited to collaborate.

The raw materials are continuously grown and cared for by more than 20 households in Phong Dien according to the process ordered by Ms. Lan and then transferred to the factory. The sedge fibers from the mud appear brilliantly in the designed handbags, decorated with Hue cultural motifs. When placed on display shelves or on the bags of models and customers, the sedge products are as beautiful as thousands of dollars worth of branded goods.

"I am confident in selling these products for at least 300,000 VND to 2 million VND. Every month, we export more than 1,500 products of all kinds. We show customers that the products we make are not only good and durable, but also contain a wonderful cultural story. In that journey, the creative hands of the farmers of Pho Trach mattress weaving village are the center, the soul," said Ms. Lan.

Bringing the image of Vietnamese culture and farmers to the world

Ms. Ho Suong Lan with fashion products made from sedge - Photo: BD

After only a few years of working, Ms. Lan has a smooth-running process of making fashion products from sedge and generating tens of billions in revenue each year. In addition to the network of farmers in the craft village, there is also a large team of designers, artists, and workers. The products reach customers who are willing to spend domestically and are sold to many countries around the world, especially reaching international tourists.

She said that not only were tourists surprised by the "branded bags from the Vietnamese countryside", but they also especially loved the embroidered and painted motifs on the products. These included the dragon image often seen in decorative motifs in Hue, the image of Vietnamese women, the image of 54 Vietnamese ethnic groups, the lotus flower...

"We should be proud of Vietnamese culture. Farmers in craft villages also have skillful hands that the whole world must acknowledge. The disadvantage is that people do not know how to develop their talents to reap the right value. I am one of the lucky people to see that.

We walk alongside farmers so that the value of sedge can bring the best life and the most appropriate stature to the people. I hope this story will be a source of inspiration for other craft villages in Vietnam," Ms. Ho Suong Lan confided.

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/co-bang-hoa-than-ruc-ro-20250215095610405.htm