Who has been to Da Lat and not been captivated by the gentle air, not bowed down in a flower valley to cast off everything and swim against the wind, to dream a daytime dream, not at night, but while the mist still shrouds half the slope?
This is Don’t Be Afraid to Say Love, pausing in the misty city to listen and capture the fragile complexities still lingering here, through the áo dài of Duc Studio. With model Gumn Phan Nghi, we chose Xuan Huong Lake as the backdrop for a silent dialogue, peeling back what the heart cannot easily express.
Xuân Hương Lake is a man-made lake in the center of Da Lat, where everyone who visits Da Lat stops at least once. The French dammed it into a lake in the early twentieth century during their “escape” from the Southern heat; they truly dreamed of a resort area with the feel of a ‘miniature Paris’ on the Lang Bian plateau. One year, a great storm swept across the plateau, breaking the dam, but it was later rebuilt.
Gumn Phan Nghi wore an áo dài featuring full-body tattoo patterns on bright red fabric from Duc Studio — bold and intense, reflecting the designer’s life struggles. Yet, having confronted pain, memory, and love, its silhouette holds a pervasive gentleness in its awareness of authentic things that remain. Gumn walked around the lake and Ánh Sáng Park. Gumn’s nature is cold, just like the Da Lat wind, but in her eyes, I saw a deep-seated softness, similar to the áo dài she wore; between them is an intersection of longing and restraint.
Đà Lạt Chiều Thẳng Đứng (The Vertical Ray of Da Lat Afternoon)
The name is another version of Mùa Hè Chiều Thẳng Đứng (The Vertical Ray of The Sun). People come to Đà Lạt not necessarily to seek, but to escape. Scattered among the passersby, here and there, I catch the shadow of the film character Quốc, the man who only photographs leaves because he fears human faces. He fears gazes, fears emotion, fears being dragged back to a life where everything carries weight. The dream of a solitary, unpopulated coast is his way of seeking liberation. Quốc neither leaves nor truly stays; he suspends himself between morning and afternoon, between wanting love and fearing hurt, between existence and dissolution – the true nature of avoidance.
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Then, looking at the swan paddle boats on Xuân Hương Lake, they too resemble souls trying to leave the shore. They drift farther into the haze, unaware if they are truly moving or just circling in a familiar orbit. They flee, yet what they fear most still lurks behind the fog: those prisons are not physical. |
| The flow of time intertwines with spatial dimension, as scholars have discovered. Anyone who knows they fear or desire something yet constantly avoids it, wonders if that unstoppable flow could be compassionate enough to coil, to bend the distance between two parallel things, so that at some bend, two lines thought never to meet finally touch? |  |
Sophie & Howl
I recall the childhood film Howl’s Moving Castle. Like Da Lat, Howl’s castle is a refuge for those afraid to confront things. Howl flies amongst the clouds, constantly moving, as if standing still too long would allow fear to find him. In the Da Lat mist, anyone can be Howl, can vanish for a moment, can pretend they are at peace. The only difference is, here, instead of a moving castle, we have homestays, cafés on the slopes, and a lake named Xuân Hương.
Let everyone be silent and speak no more
To hear the lake’s bottom water roar
To hear the willow threads tremble in the wind
And to hear Heaven explain what love is.
(Quatrain from the poem “Da Lat Faint Moonlight” by the Vietnamese poet Hàn Mặc Tử)
And then, from nowhere, catalysts appear that give us the courage to confront things. Like Sophie for Howl, like the people we meet, the events that happen, appearing without warning in the mist, causing us to pause, breathe deep, and realize that we can face it and rekindle the bravery we thought was lost.
“In that moment, avoidance is no longer the destination, but a path leading to the ability to confront and feel oneself more clearly.”
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In the mist and cold wind of Da Lat, everything blurs, making one think they are escaping. Mist is not just a weather phenomenon; it is like a mirror of the unconscious, reflecting suppressed things quietly spreading out. We think we are lost in the haze, but the mist is actually sketching the shadow of fears we have never dared to face, leading us in circles only to finally meet the very thing we haven’t named.
Da Lat showed me that love, confrontation, and avoidance are inseparable rhythms of a heart trying to live fully. Avoidance, in a way, is not about running away, but about listening, feeling, and accumulating the courage for the steps that require confronting oneself.
In a dream, I saw a brown horse with a blaze on its forehead. I tried to approach it; the distance shrank to twen-ty cen-ti-me-ters, and it gave me a scornful, painful laugh. The closest, yet the farthest I’ve ever reached.
“Don’t Be Afraid to Say Love” is the first interdisciplinary creative journey in Vietnam, opening a space for fashion, architecture, art, science, and sociology to meet. Season 1 (2025) centers on the áo dài to send a message of love from Vietnam to the world. “A Love for Life” is a series of interactive experiments by DNNLY, placing the áo dài in the context of Vietnamese parks to share this message of love with everyone.
*Vượt Không (Beyond Proximity): “Không” here is not just space (Da Lat, mist, distance) but also the psychological state of avoidance, fear, and the distance we set between ourselves and love. “Vượt Không” is the process of internalization, silent preparation, or swimming in that same indefinite void to accumulate courage.
*Gặp Thời (There’s Time): “Thời” is the ripe moment, the opportunity, the instant when the flow of time is compassionate enough to bend distance. “Gặp Thời” means the moment when internal preparation (Vượt Không) intersects with an external catalyst (like Sophie or someone we meet), allowing us to transform from avoidance to confrontation.
CREDIT
PHOTOGRAPHY: CHIRON DUONG (@chironduong)
PROJECT MANAGER: HẢI MÂN (@carl.thewatermelon)
MODEL: GUMN PHAN NGHI (@gumnol)
CONTENT: VIỆT THẮNG (@vthanjj)
WEB LAYOUT: THIEN TAI (@thientai_)
