Launching his own brand Lựu Đạn in 2022, Vietnamese American designer Hung La has used this platform as a design-led connection to his roots, boldly exploring and redefining notions of Asian identity. His latest collection focuses on a ‘dangerous man’ persona, a specific breed of masculinity that weaves through the rich tapestry of Asian Chicano culture – “He’s like your dodgy uncle, who gambles too much and drinks too much.”

This narrative is brought to life through a unique lookbook that casts barber/tattoo/airbrush/lifestyle collective Viet Monster Hood, including freehand tattoo artist Thao Mexicano and barber/tattooist Liem Barber, who all embrace and elevate Chicano subculture through a modern and nuanced approach. Inspired by the raw, monochrome gang photographs of Merrick Morton in the 80s and 90s, the lookbook is shot amongst the car, motorcycle and illustration culture inherent to the scene. Featuring Lựu đạn’s latest collection of super wide-leg jeans, DIY embellished leather Perfecto jackets, paint splatter denim, vests and check shirts, the imagery draws a visual portrait that celebrates the vibrant essence of identity and cultural appreciation.

Evan Goodfellow: Hey, I love what you are doing with Lựu Đạn and I am curious about the concept behind the brand, this concept of a dangerous man.
Hung La: Are you based in Thailand full-time?

EG: Yeah. I moved here five years ago. I was excited to talk to you about your impression of all the change happening in Vietnam. About twenty years ago, I went to Vietnam and did a whole tour from Chi Minh all the way up to Hanoi – two weeks. I go back every year or two and it’s shocking how much has changed since 2001.
HL: Yeah, I was going around the same time and like, the dirt roads when you would do that trip from Saigon to Hanoi – you hit just about every pothole. Then there will be goats crossing the street for a couple of hours and everyone gets out of the bus.

EG: Vietnam is coming up so rapidly. I read that by 2025 they’re going to have the largest middle-class economy in all of Southeast Asia.
Hung La: That’s crazy. It’s such a young, vibrant energy.

EG: Now there are so many cool hip restaurants and bars. When I first went it felt really communist twenty years ago, now it feels really free and young.
HL: Yeah. To get back to your first question, the reason why I asked whether you live in Thailand is because there’s this specific breed of masculinity that is kind of alluded to in the West, but it’s not celebrated and it’s not that well-known. That’s why I asked your experience with that region, because there’s definitely a bad boy kind of sleazy; he’s like your dodgy uncle, who gambles too much and drinks too much. You know, the guy that I’m talking about. 

EG: Yeah, like the motorcycle taxi drivers near my street here. 
HL: He’s a little bit up to no good and that’s Lựu đạn. So Lựu Đạn means grenade. It means pomegranate bullet. For more of my parents’ generation, Lựu Đạn means this bad boy that you wouldn’t bring home to your mother because he was not a good representation of upstanding behaviour. The name comes from my dad. We were discussing names and I wanted something inherently Vietnamese and to tie back to kind of my family origins and that culture. When we launched the brand, there was so much more space for Asian masculinity and Asian identity. But it’s still very narrow. K-pop has space, but it doesn’t have breath yet. There was this Asian bad boy that I really wanted to talk about, it kind of harks back to my own youth. I got in trouble with the law, I was a bookie in high school, a drug dealer, really into 90s hip hop. Then I went through my own transformations.

I wanted to create a fashion brand that spoke to these hidden nuances, and different pockets of Asian identity that I don’t see, especially in the West. It started as a foray into very Japanese references like Bōsōzoku culture and Watanabe Katsumi, and early Yohji. Now it’s evolved more into spotlighting different, more contemporary happenings in Chengdu, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam. There are so many pockets of vibrant culture I’m discovering, and is being reflected back to me by social media.

EG: That’s so interesting. I moved to Korea in 2005. And Korea at that time was not ‘cool’ at all. Nobody was interested in Korea. I used to call my friends back home and tell them how good Korea was, so much was happening in fashion and art. There were so many good skate spots, and nobody wanted to come or was interested. Then 2013 things started really popping off there. I just went back to Korea, and all the big brands are opening flagship stores, like Supreme and Fucking Awesome. I feel like Vietnam, will soon have its time like Korea. I think it might be in the next ten years.
HL: I totally agree. There’s an explosion of vibrant culture. Traditionally, the model has always been the East looks to the West. I remember growing up in the 80s and 90s with Coca-Cola, Michael Jackson, Michael Jordan, the Dream Team, and all of the iconic things. Now, the West for me, and I spent all of my life in the West, you’re competing for such small real estate, everything is mined. But in Asia, there’s hope. There’s possibility. There’s vibrant energy, there’s newness, and I think that’s, that’s what I’m trying to kind of capture with Lựu Đạn. It’s funny, because I’ve been on calls with some Vietnamese kids in the club scene and they’re like, “Come on, you need to represent Vietnam more.” For me, there’s this beckoning call of Asia as a family, Asia as one homogenous culture.

I am Vietnamese born in America and I travelled a lot to Asia before Vietnam was open. In the 80s, we would go to Hong Kong, we would go to Korea, and we spent a lot of time in Thailand. So I was exposed to a lot of that growing up. There was this kind of otherness, like this open world. I feel like Asia is really coming of age and I think it’s my responsibility as someone who creates culture to speak loudly about celebrating the unknown and underrepresented.

EG: How did your family come from Vietnam to America? Was it during the war?
HL: My parents were, luckily in college at that time [of the war], so they were studying abroad. My grandfather was a politician. So the original name for the brand was “Why Nam”, which means ‘remember Vietnam’, that was my grandfather’s pen name when he was a writer. His story was that he was born in northern Vietnam and when the country split, his family was split. His father was a professor who was already in the underground political movement, fighting against communism. He moved his family down south, so he did not see his father or his brother for the rest of his life.

My grandfather was a politician, a mathematician, he directed a film promoting the democratic movement in Vietnam, and he created the Saigon Post [newspaper]. There was a necessity for forward-thinking minds like him. So he later became the ambassador-at-large, the ambassador between Vietnam and America. During the war, he was posted in Washington, D.C. So that’s, how my roots started in Washington. He’s always been a big inspiration for us. I mean, my family was fortunate. As the US was pulling out, he had to go home to Vietnam to rescue his mom and aunt from Saigon. And they hopped on a plane and they went to Washington.

EG: I’m sure for your grandfather having those stances on communism and being from the North was not easy.
HL: It’s a really complex history, I’m a Vietnamese born in America, so I have both American identity and Vietnamese identity. There’s just this whole kind of first generation born in America, mixed values, kind of internalised racism. Growing up in America thinking Asian is less than, and the internalised racism. Lựu Đạn is a way for me to come to peace with all of that. It’s my way of giving back to that teenage kid that didn’t feel like he had space, to create community. If you look at Asian identity, nowadays we have more choice and the hope of Lựu Đạn is to give people something to rally around.

EG: Tell me about how you connected with Viet Monster, Mr. Liem Barber and Thao Mexicano.
HL: Actually, I was first turned on to the Chicano scene in Bangkok. I saw the imagery and was like, “Oh, my God, this is what this is?” This is that regional-specific storytelling that I’m craving. It’s such a beautiful story of floating origins. I think it’s appreciation, not appropriation. It’s like, in Japan, you have these really authentic cowboys who have a love for the culture. There are so many similarities to the ideas of displacement and being a minority. Then all of a sudden fashion becomes this vehicle to adopt certain codes, a language and a way of life. Then it becomes its own thing.

I found Mr. Liem Barber, and Viet Monster on social, and I DM’d them, and they didn’t reply. They have 500,000 followers and I couldn’t get through to them. Then, we were putting together ideas for a campaign and my partner was like, you’ve been shooting so much in the West, you need to shoot in the East, you need to get this flavour. So I dug through every single one of their posts and I hit up everybody. I got a hold of their friends and then slowly got in touch with Liem, the founder. It took a lot of work.

Then there was also a different culture around shooting. There’s a different cultural language in the West, it’s like shoot date, confirmation, and confirming budget. In Vietnam, it’s a little bit more freestyle. People working late, saying, “Oh, I can squeeze you in.” I had a deadline I had to hit, and we passed it because the goods were stuck in customs for two weeks. We declared everything and it was just a lot of back and forth. Then finally we got it out and they were like, “OK, we can shoot the next day.” So I said, “Let’s do it.”