This editorial project set out to merge fine art fashion design with Vietnamese visual heritage in a manner worthy of an artbook. The concept: use Hàng Trống painting language in a delicate fusion with John Galliano-style flat-painting editorial photography, to tell a high-fashion yet deeply cultural story inspired by “Thăng Long Tứ Trấn” and a final “Thăng Long” dragon head set.

We treated the city as an invisible couture garment, and the garments as carriers of its myths. The approach was to let Hàng Trống forms and colors seep into composition, pose and lighting—never as costume, always as aura. Galliano’s flat-painting sensibility informed our frames: characters arranged like figures in a scroll, time suspended between brushstroke and shutter.

We mapped each “trấn” to a fashion set: protective, spiritual, boundary-defining energies translated into silhouettes, textures and postures. Props and settings were chosen to hint at the specific guardian without literal reenactment. The final “Thăng Long” set placed a dragon head motif at the center—sometimes in garment form, sometimes as negative space in the layout—symbolizing the city’s rising spirit.