This collection of photographs is from a series of photo shoots I did for Dam Fine Designs, an online store my mom opened in 2013 to sell handmade scarves and other knitted goods. I love photographing my sisters in general not only because they are remarkably photogenic but also because they are forgiving whenever I need extra time to focus a shot or find a good angle. These photo sessions with my sisters were particularly enjoyable for me because the pictures represent a meaningful part of my mom’s story.
My mom is a woman of many skills, most of them self-taught as a function of necessity. Born and raised in Vietnam, she grew up amidst civil conflict that came to a head when she was in her mid-twenties. Previously on track to become a social worker, she was suddenly thrust in the position of having to make money by any means necessary to help feed herself and her family. She quickly got creative, learning how to roll cigarettes and weave baskets to sell.
A few years later, my mom fled Vietnam altogether in the hope of starting a better life in America. She gave birth to my oldest sister her first year in the United States. Two years later, she had another daughter. One year later, another. Two more years passed, and I was born. At 33, my mom found herself tasked with raising four girls in a country whose language and customs she hardly understood with only my dad’s modest salary to support us. Once again, she got creative.
Even though we didn’t have a lot of money growing up, my mom’s resourcefulness helped my sisters and me feel less like we were missing out on the finer things in life. For one, she kept us very well fed. In America, she learned from her sisters and other Vietnamese women how to cook a variety of Vietnamese dishes ranging from the simple (sticky rice and caramelized shrimp) to the complex (pho, a flavorful Vietnamese noodle soup, the broth of which my mom would labor over for hours). We did not have a fancy kitchen, any of the latest and greatest kitchen gadgets (I distinctly recall my mom for years using the same gigantic butcher’s knife to slice apples as she used to chop meat), or probably even a matching set of dinnerware. Nonetheless, every meal my mom cooked was prepared with high quality ingredients that she was able to afford because of her enthusiasm for scouting the best sales and dedication to clipping coupons. Moreover, her style in the kitchen was natural and intuitive; she never followed recipes yet somehow always managed to achieve the perfect balance of flavors.
My mom was resourceful in other ways, too. She sewed the dress that my sister wore to her junior year prom. She hemmed all my pants that were too long for me (i.e., every pair of pants I’ve ever purchased). She made imitations of the more expensive articles of clothing my sisters and I wanted to buy. Growing up, my parents had a strict rule of only buying items that were on sale. This rule occasionally subjected my mom to tears and tantrums when my sisters or I spied a full-price article of clothing we loved. As a solution to this problem, my mom would buy the coveted article of clothing, study it, recreate it from comparable fabric she scouted at the fabric store, and return it unworn and with the tags intact.
For all her resourcefulness and craftiness, the one thing my mom never was is a businesswoman. Because she and my dad immediately started a family upon their resettlement in America, my mom never had a meaningful opportunity to go back to school or work outside of the home. Besides that, my mom is one of the most generous human beings I know, which can sometimes work to her detriment. She gives money to every homeless person she passes. If you compliment her purse, she’ll offer to give it to you. My dad once recounted to us in exasperation that during his and my mom’s first couple of years in America, when they were still reliant on charity for clothes and other necessities, my mom would pick the ugliest and most tattered articles of clothing for herself so she could leave the nicer items for other people.
While my mom’s generosity is unparalleled, it does not translate into strong business acumen. The one time I saw her try to sell anything during my childhood–homemade egg rolls at an annual festival organized by the Catholic elementary and middle school in South Carolina that my sisters and I attended–was an endearingly comical failure. Of the hundreds of egg rolls she deep fried, probably while squatting in the driveway of our home, she likely gave away far more than she sold. Buy one egg roll, get five free.
So when my mom decided in 2013 to sell some of the scarves she’d recently started knitting cho vui (“for fun”), my sisters and I quickly stepped in to help her on the business side. Kim, who is a UX designer with a background in graphic design, set up an Etsy store to display and sell my mom’s wares. Bee, who is the executive director of a nonprofit organization she founded, jumped in with ideas about marketing, pricing, and sales strategy. I whipped out my DSLR and volunteered to take pictures of my sisters modeling scarves for the Etsy store. With the help of friends, we brainstormed about a name for the store, in the end settling on Dam Fine Designs, a play on my mom’s name, Dam. Then, my sisters and I–all five of us–used our collective woman power to sell scarves to our family, friends, friends of friends, professional colleagues, and anyone else we could reach within our respective networks.
Meanwhile, my mom continued to do what she does best: create, improvise, and improve. She added headbands to her inventory. She learned new knitting patterns by watching YouTube videos. My mom barely speaks English, so her ability to learn a complicated knitting pattern from watching an instructional video in English is rather impressive; when I asked her about it, she giggled and admitted that she had to watch the YouTube video on repeat for hours.
Unsurprisingly, my mom squabbled with us about pricing, suggesting alternative prices below market value that significantly undervalued her time and talent. When we reported to her that we’d made a sale to a friend, she’d want to give the friend a deep discount; absolutely not, my sisters and I would respond. After heated debate, she’d generally throw her hands up in the air and let us dictate the business decisions. The one and only thing she was adamant about, though, was donating a portion of the proceeds from any sales to impoverished people in Vietnam, an idea that was met with no opposition.
Being a witness to my mom’s first real business venture has been a special experience for me. Though my mom’s creative spirit is woven throughout her narrative, the manifestations of her creativity have traditionally been tied to a need to support her family. Dam Fine Designs is my mom’s first project since leaving Vietnam that’s enabled her to translate her talent into profit and that she started solely for herself–not because she needed the money but simply because she had the skills to craft a quality good that people wanted to buy. I wish I could tell you that Dam Fine Designs immediately took off and that my mom received more orders than she could fill. The truth is most of her customers have been friends of mine or my sisters. But on the rare occasion that a perfect stranger does make a purchase, the hint of excitement that can be heard in my mom’s voice–despite her best efforts to control it–is priceless.
