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Based between Barcelona and her native city of Vinnytsia, Ukraine, Kati Lanhe is the design powerhouse behind K M by Lange. Her design studio focuses on sustainable practices, empowering women, and providing an outlet for self-expression that transcends societal norms.
Having received the Lissome Creative Fellowship Award, Kati recently visited Vietnam with TextileSeekers, a slow-travel company that introduces curious visitors to indigenous artisan craftsmanship across the country. Over the course of a week, she explored Vietnam's ancestral textile traditions, meeting dyers, weavers, silk makers, and other multi-generational artisans. The result of her journey is a dreamy capsule collectsion inspired by the experience, incorporating textiles, accents, and techniques from throughout Vietnam.
Below, she shares her visual diary and key pieces from the collectsion.
We begin in Hanoi, where the pulse of Vietnam beats the loudest in an alluring capital city, where old and new come together. After arriving at our boutique hotel, I took time to unpack and joined a roommate for a quick street walk, followed by a welcome drink and meeting with Thao, the founder of TextileSeekers.
The second day was such an inspiration! We explored selected museums, wandering the alleys of Hanoi’s 36 Street in the Old Quarter, which buzzes with artisans and craftspeople. We visited curated antique stores and the studio of Ms. Tinh, a proud member of the Red Tay tribe who works with natural dyes and vintage looms. I had the opportunity to discover how she weaves fabrics on an ancient traditional loom and explore how she has adopted the city as her home from which to continue her tribal traditions.
As part of our exploration into traditional natural dyeing techniques, I created my first piece: a silk Ukrainian flag, an ode to my roots and my country.
On the third day, we headed to Mal Chau, nestled in the heart of the mountains. This valley is renowned for its natural beauty and verdant rice terraces.
Avana Retreat
Upon arriving at the beautiful Avana Retreat, our new home in Mai Chau, I had time to reconvene over dinner, share my aspirations for this part of our journey with other group members, and enjoy the truly breathtaking surroundings as we were introduced to a wholly different pace of life.
After my yoga class in Avana Resort and a delicious breakfast, we drove to the home of Jay, Thao's fellow local guide. There, we met a traditional Hmong family. We took part in a hemp-making workshop to better understand the culture behind hemp and its various products. The woven fibers result in a highly versatile fabric.
In the lush stillness of Mai Châu, I learned the quiet language of batik painting and indigo dyeing from the Hmong women, artists of rhythm and earth.
We sat on mats beneath wooden stilt houses. With a tjanting tool, I drew in warm beeswax, guided by their gestures and patience. The cloth held each imperfect line like a whispered story.
Then, into the indigo. Green at first, then blue, deepening with air and time.
Each piece became a meditation: wax, dye, heat, repeat. Nothing rushed. Everything intentional.
I returned with more than cloth. I carried the feeling of slowness, of tradition held in hand—a way of working, and being, I now bring into every piece I create.
We spent long, quiet afternoons with the Hmong family, sharing meals, stories, and silences filled with meaning. Their home, full of kids, handwoven cloth and the scent of wood smoke, felt like stepping into a living archive—one made of gestures, not display.
Every moment, every thread, reminded me that beauty lives in the rhythm of daily life, in patience, and in things made by hand.
After a full day immersed in the indigo hills of Mai Châu, we returned to the stillness of Avana Retreat, a place that feels more like a breath than a destination.
There, tucked among bamboo groves and soft mountain air, I visited the weaving workshop. Waiting at the loom were two beautiful souls: Ông Hà Văn Nhiệu (age 74) with quiet eyes and hands worn from decades of rhythm, and his wife Bà Hà Thị Thư (age 73) with a smile like sunlight on woven cloth.
They showed me how threads move between fingers and memory, how patterns emerge slowly—not from design, but from feeling. Their presence was humbling. Their grace, unforgettable.
On the fifth day, guided by Ms. Trang, we traced the journey of silk, from mulberry fields to the delicate hush of spinning cocoons—a quiet witnessing of nature's finest thread.
Ms. Trang welcomed us into her gentle, purposeful world—a daily rhythm rooted in beauty. We explored the art of natural dyeing with plants and flowers native to the region, the source of the Tay people’s vibrant, iconic palette.
We delved into their weaving traditions, where brocade and jacquard are more than patterns, they are stories. Each symbol holds memory, identity, and a whisper of the Tay tribe’s heritage.
Together, we created our own small interpretations, guided by tradition, shaped by new surroundings, and inspired by the quiet power of making
I spent my final days alone in this vivid city where quiet alleys meet the pulse of scooters, where old walls bloom with bougainvillea.
Hanoi is contrast and calm, chaos and poetry, and I let it all unfold slowly around me.
I stood still beside lakes where the city seemed to breathe more slowly. I let the noise and stillness live beside each other and felt no need to choose between them.
Hanoi is not one story. It's many-layered and lived-in. And in these last quiet moments, I felt the threads of everything I'd seen—the indigo, the wax, the silk, the people—begin to settle into place.
Not as souvenirs. But as memory.
