Spice the Love No.12

This week, let us begin the letter with a lighthearted little story.

This past spring, we joined Ethnotek — a brand that weaves Vietnamese brocade into thoughtfully designed bags and travel backpacks — on a visit to H’Mông and Thái ethnic artisans in Lai Châu and Lào Cai.

The connection goes back just over a year. We were in the middle of a shoot at Tôn Thất Đạm market — photographing chef Peter Cường Franklin for Đẹp magazine’s “Around the Dining Table” column — when a group of foreigners happened to walk by, stopped out of curiosity, and asked for our contact.

We figured it was just passing interest. But one of them actually followed up, took the time to learn what we do, and when they found out that one of us writes and the other shoots, the whole team was thrilled. As it turned out, they’d just been talking among themselves: “We need someone who can both photograph and write — someone to handle our brand visuals and content.” Running into us felt like a stroke of luck. And just like that, a collaboration was born.

Everyone at the company is genuinely lovely. When the team came back to Vietnam and told Jack — the American founder — about us, he flew over just a month later and stopped by our place for a visit. The conversation flowed easily. What struck us was how much warmth and openness he carried.

That day, he told us the story behind the brand. More than a decade ago, as a backpacker wandering through the northern highlands, he ran his hands over pieces of brocade fabric, witnessed the lives of ethnic minority communities, and felt a pull — a quiet conviction that he had to do something to bring this craft to the wider world. As fate would have it, he crossed paths with a factory owner who was just starting out himself. Jack pitched the idea; the owner was in immediately. They built things together from the ground up — one developing the brand, the other growing the factory — and both companies have been running in parallel ever since.

What’s charming is how many people ended up joining the company almost by accident. Someone met Jack at a bar, struck up a conversation, and found themselves with an offer. The team is scattered across different countries and cities, working almost entirely online — and yet they share the same easygoing spirit, the same commitment to sustainability. On one of their trips together, a few team members met face-to-face for the very first time after years of working remotely. On this most recent trip, everyone got to connect with new faces — partners and collaborators who had only ever existed on a screen. The distance, somehow, felt like nothing at all.

Being in the middle of all of this — these stories, this atmosphere — felt genuinely wonderful. It’s the kind of freedom we’ve always gravitated toward. Most of our own collaborations have started the same way: an unexpected meeting, a small coincidence that quietly became something more. We believe that when you stay open, surprises find their way to you — one way or another. And each time we welcome something new, new doors open in return. That’s how we move through the world: from one hill to the next, from one peak to another, from one shoreline to the next — touching the kind of freedom we’ve always hoped for.