What is style? I’ve always been into clothing but the idea of style has, through the years, remained an enigma. I considered people like Keith Richards, Paul Simonon, and Alessandro Squarzi to have style, and by the same token, I thought of people who served as literary inspirations—Garcia Marquez, Hemingway, my father—to be equally stylish, both in their writing and the way they lived. Style, then, isn’t relegated to just the clothes you wear. It’s something more than that. Something set deeper. Something hard to pinpoint but like a beautiful painting or an evening spent with a lover: just feels right. When I spoke to Oanh, co-founder of a vintage clothing store called The Demor, she seemed to agree. Style, in her eyes, can be whatever you want to define it as. However, in the context of clothing, she believes style is anything that makes you feel confident and content, regardless of trends, price tags, or uniqueness. From the day I met her, Oanh was someone who I believe lived up to this idea. Not just in the sensibility of her dress sense but in the stylish, considered manner with which she exists in the world.
I’m of the belief that some people are predestined to be doing what they’re doing and hearing Oanh’s story, I think she’s one of those people. For one, her grandmother, mother, and aunt all worked as seamstresses so she was exposed to this line of work from an early age. Besides that, growing up in Phú Nhuận meant her childhood home was right by Nguyễn Đình Chiểu market. At the time vintage clothing wasn’t that expensive and she remembers going to the market with her mother and spending hours digging through the piles and piles of clothes. The second-hand clothing at Nguyễn Đình Chiểu market tended to come from Japan and Korea, which offered Oanh a glimpse into the possibilities of fashion and style from abroad. More so than that, however, was the fact that for the young Oanh, this act of digging for clothes and finding a piece she loved unlocked feelings of discovering treasure. It's one thing to go to a store where everything is already neatly curated for you, hung on racks, easily accessible. It's a whole other thing to experience what it's like digging through piles of clothing, seemingly panning for traces of gold in the same way vinyl lovers thumb through stacks of records. The tactile sensation draws you much closer to the source. It's more intimate, raw, and memorable.
Alongside an early love of clothing, Oanh also adored the arts. From painting, poetry, singing, and dancing, she loved the many different forms of self-expression but unfortunately, schools in Vietnam don’t put much of an emphasis on teaching these subjects. This meant that until the end of secondary school, she was mostly learning the typical subjects students are expected to learn. Having said that, she did well in her studies, but that would all change in high school.
Moving to a different school meant a new environment and new friends, and now that she was older, a new attitude. She became, as most teenagers do, a little aloof. While she’d always been decently studious, she suddenly stopped caring as much about the typical Vietnamese, English, and math lessons. However, this came at a cost. When you turn your back on what’s prescribed to you at school, it isn’t as easy to envision what you should do for your future. On top of this, despite Oanh’s love of the arts, it wasn’t something as readily accessible and even if she wanted to pursue a career in this area she had no connections and no money. So began a period of uncertainty and questions. By the time she graduated high school she’d decided journalism was a career she wanted to pursue but after failing the university entrance exam for the school she wanted to attend, she opted for a gap year instead—It was a period of a lot of soul searching. When the year was up, she decided to attend the University of Pedagogy to study French but ended up dropping out after one semester due to what Oanh said was a need to make money and the belief—at the time—that university was a waste of time. Though the period was short-lived, it ended up changing her life. It was where she’d end up meeting her ex boyfriend, someone whom Oanh considered her best friend and who became her partner at The Demor.
Born out of a shared love of vintage clothing, rock n’ roll music, and digging for clothes, The Demor started in 2015. The name came from a play on the words denim and motorcycle—denim because Oanh and her partner loved wearing denim jackets and motorcycle because of her partner’s love of motorcycles. Their vision was to create a place where likeminded individuals could come and shop for the type of clothes they were into but didn’t have much access to in Saigon at the time—think anything from the 90’s era of Grunge like denim jackets, flannel, army boots. Pair those with bomber jackets, varsity jackets, and Hawaiian shirts and you start to get the picture of the variety of items they sold. Although The Demor started out selling exclusively online, it wasn’t long before they rented a shop in the alleyway next to Oanh’s childhood home. It was a good start but the place was small and they realised that while customers liked the clothes, they had a difficult time finding the shop in the first place. Soon after, they relocated to a larger store on Ngô Tất Tố in Bình Thạnh. This store ended up being their nicest and most famous location. For Oanh, it was everything she’d dreamt of. The perfect location in the perfect building which possessed the vintage, nostalgic atmosphere The Demor’s concept was founded upon. However, the good times couldn’t last. Though they’d signed a two-year contract with the landlord, it was rescinded without much warning or explanation. Suddenly, they didn’t have a store. While they found one in District 1’s Nguyễn Bỉnh Khiêm street, relocating meant having to pay a variety of expenses as well as losing a bunch of customers. Having said that, after a while The Demor’s District 1 outlet found its own recognition and the spot was even included in a piece by Saigoneer about Saigon’s culture of denim. After two years, they moved back to Bình Thạnh with a store on Phan Văn Hân street. With a shared love of craft beer and whiskey, the two opened a space called Trật Tự on the ground floor of the building The Demor was on. It was a place for people to have a drink and chat. While quickly gaining popularity among the vintage, indie, and hippie community, it had to close once Covid hit.
While The Demor had been building a steady following both on social media platforms and at their different stores throughout Saigon, everything was put on pause as a result of the pandemic. As Oanh put it, during Covid people didn’t have the luxury of spending money on clothes. They needed to save for necessities like food, water, and medicine which meant that business all but dried up. There were periods where they had to close up shop for months at a time, and even after life started returning to a state of normalcy, there was still a long recovery period that meant businesses like The Demor had to contend with the ripple effects of the pandemic. Besides this very real effect on their business, Oanh and her partner also had to deal with difficulties in their relationship that eventually culminated in a break up. It was ironic, how when the play button was pressed and the world opened up once more, rather than rejoicing in the return of life, work, and love, Oanh was faced with a different, grimmer reality than the one pre-Covid.
Following Covid, Oanh and her ex had to figure out what to do with The Demor. Initially her ex considered taking over as something of a one-man show before realising that the burden of doing so would be too heavy. It wasn’t long before they talked about selling The Demor’s Facebook and Instagram accounts and forever deleting what they’d created. However, pulling the trigger was hard. Oanh even considered trying to continue The Demor herself but she understood how difficult that would be. Apart from that, this was a period where for the first time in as long as she could remember, Oanh had a bit more freedom to explore who she was as a woman and individual. She recounts having the space to be alone, which meant the chance to try out different jobs and discover different versions of herself. Such changes manifested in a resurgence of her feminine side, a part of her that she’d kept hidden while trying to build The Demor because of her preconceived belief that in order to run a business she had to be tougher and more decisive—Essentially, more masculine. Besides regaining some of her femininity, she also had the opportunity to work a variety of jobs like a barista, a salesperson/supervisor at a clothing store, and waitressing at Belgo. These opened her up to a myriad of possibilities, given that up until then she’d pretty much been tunnel vision on clothing. A year passed. Two. Oanh’s plans with The Demor remained up in the air. While the store was gone they’d kept the social media pages going, though posts and updates were rare. Even if she occasionally felt the tug of getting back into clothing, the main issue was the fact that she never wanted to do The Demor alone. That was why when she met Ka, her close friend and current partner, everything started feeling possible again.
They met as waitresses at the Belgo in Đa Kao. Hailing from Da Lat, which has a burgeoning vintage clothing scene of its own, Ka was always interested in clothes and harboured something of a dream of one day opening up her own store. She already knew about The Demor and asked Oanh why she’d stopped and whether she had any desire to start it up again. While these conversations rekindled Oanh’s first love of vintage clothing and she now recognised in Ka a partner with whom she could take The Demor forward, they still weren’t enough to convince her to start. That only came when the Single Stitch events began.
Established in 2022, Single Stitch has amassed a reputation as the premier vintage clothing event organiser in Vietnam. By gathering a who’s who of vintage clothing store owners and hosting events where crowds gather for several days of thrifting as well as music, food, and drinks, Single Stitch is giving the vintage clothing community a platform to grow. Oanh reached out in hopes of getting a slot at the event but when she found out the vendor fee, wasn’t sure she had the budget to join. It was thanks to the generosity of the founder of Single Stitch, Sang Ngô, who said he’d let them join at half price which gave Oanh and Ka the confidence to give it a shot. The two of them represented The Demor in what felt like the big stage, and though she admits they didn’t make many sales that weekend, she felt the love and support of the vintage clothing community which rekindled the fire inside of her. Having said that, the event was also a reality check. Having taken a three-year hiatus, she realised how far the vintage clothing scene had come, with numerous shops constantly popping up. This makes it difficult to go scouring for clothes at markets like Nguyễn Đình Chiểu to unearth something worth selling. Given that The Demor is also a smaller business run by Oanh and Ka—both with full time jobs—competing in this fast-moving environment is difficult. Still, like any entrepreneur holding down a day job while pursuing a dream, they manage in their own way.
Things have come and gone since Oanh started The Demor back when she was a teenager, but what’s remained is the neverending discovery of how she chooses to define herself as a woman and individual in the world. Speaking to her, I was surprised when she admitted that she didn’t want The Demor to take full-control of her life. Sure, she’s glad to be working on it again but that post-Covid period which she spent finding herself and dabbling in other professions made her realise how many interests she has and that maybe it doesn’t all have to be about clothing. After all, clothes are only what we put on to make ourselves look and feel a certain way but once those are removed it’s our bodies, blood, and bones that hold the deep seated truth of who we are. Last year, Oanh started working as an English teacher as a means of supporting herself and found in the work a kind of reward and satisfaction that anyone is lucky to find in a job. This means alongside teaching, Oanh intends on continuing her partnership with Ka to build The Demor at their own, steady pace. They returned to a brick and mortar store on Trần Quang Diệu Street in District 3 in October but beyond that, who’s to tell? No matter what, I’m sure Oanh will maintain her style throughout it all.
- Find The Demor
- Follow The Demor on Instagram & Facebook
- Follow Oanh’s art Instagram
