When most people backpack overseas, they come back with a suitcase of souvenirs. When Pauline Lewis returned from her trip in Asia almost four years ago, she brought back ideas. She was going to start a handbag company … and she’d do so by working with the Vietnamese women in the co-ops.
After spotting a beautiful bag in the window of a shop in Southern Vietnam, Pauline approached the owner, Le Thi Hong Tu (known as Hong Tu), who also happened to be the designer of the piece. The result of this encounter was a collaboration born between two women — one from the East, one from the West.
“Here I was in a backpacker’s outfit and my sneakers, talking to this woman about working together,” Pauline said. “The quality of the handmade products in her shop stood out from the hundreds of shops that I saw. I knew I had to persuade her to work with me. It did take another trip to convince her I was serious; and probably six months for her to truly trust that I really wanted to work with her.”
Once the two joined forces, they named their company oovoo (pronounced ö-vö), from the Latin word “ovo” meaning from the egg, from the beginning. Each bag is handcrafted and hand-embroidered with their signature scrolling colorful designs created by Pauline and Hong Tu.
This partnership between the two women has grown to support more than 500 women in Vietnam. The company employs 120 full-time workers in the southern region and several hundred part-time employees in the North, who embroider the bags.
“Once Hong Tu and I agreed to work together, we traveled to the embroidery villages together and started training them on our designs and our process,” Pauline said. “Many of the women were already familiar and skilled in hand-embroidery and it was just a matter of showing them our unique design.”
The two then appointed one of the women to act as a liaison and administrator of the process. “It took about six months to set up a more formal process,” Pauline said, who resides in Virginia. “But now that it is in place, Hong Tu visits the cooperatives once every two months and I visit twice a year.”
The bags can take up to 20 hours to make, as no machines are used and each one is unique. The women employed are paid 15 percent above market rate as well as receiving a month’s salary as a bonus during the Vietnamese New Year.
“Owning your own company, you get to decide how to run it, who you employ and how you can sleep at night,” Pauline said. Working with only women-owned businesses and vendor companies, the creator of oovoo works to “build a business model based on positive working relationships among women.”
“It’s hard to explain without clichès — but I truly believe it is my personal responsibility to improve my own life through improving the lives of others around me,” she said.
Pauline said that she knew she wanted to work with women’s co-ops when starting this project. “I have lived in and traveled to many parts of Asia: Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan, China, Japan, India, Nepal. And most Asian countries are doing much better than they were 30-40 years ago … the few that have been left behind are a stark contrast. Vietnam is one of those countries, yet the people there don’t complain and they work very hard to make a better life for their children.” She said that she never hears “we’re so poor;” she hears, “If I work harder, will you help me?”
“It’s a balance,” Pauline explained of the choice to employ these women overseas. “I can’t bite off too much. I sometimes wake up and think, ‘I’m responsible for the 500 women and their financial wellbeing.'”
But she and Hong Tu work hard to keep the women employed. They design together, even though they are so far away from each other. While Vietnam has very little access to magazines or current trends, Pauline, here in the States, is able to look at magazines, pattern books, and said she is very inspired by art deco, geometric shapes and textile designs.
“I sit down and just start drawing,” Pauline said. “I look at current trends as a springboard for what goes inside the embroidered designs. From season to season it depends …” She said she understands what American women like in terms of colors, concepts, styles and shapes. And Hong Tu is able to refine the detailing of the designs and carry out the visions, as she is an artisan by nature. Together, they create new signature designs each season.
Pauline, a former market research executive for big Fortune 100 companies, not only brings artistic and trend knowledge, she brings business knowledge. In the beginning days of the company a few years ago, she was traveling overseas to help manage the process. Now, she’s able to concentrate on travel here in the U.S. for the company. She said one of the biggest challenges is to keep the company profitable and keep the heart of the reason of why it was started. She said she also wants the bags to speak for themselves, while keeping the company feeling very personal. “I pack the bags myself,” Pauline said of the personal touch.
Pauline wanted and achieved a full circle network of support for the women of Vietnam by the women in the U.S. and vice versa by owning an artisan company that she knew she wanted to start. “I knew I would work with something [artistic],” she said. She pondered pottery, belts, scarves, and then saw the handbag in the window to confirm it would be that direction. And the handbags are beautiful one-of-a-kind pieces in the process. “And every woman needs one,” Pauline said. “There are no sizes involved and there are relatively few import restrictions, it’s practical for all.”
Each panel of the bags are embroidered separately with silk thread and then all of the panels are sewn together. Bags are made from a synergistic mix of cotton, polyester, silk, leather and suede. They are fully lined with inside pockets.
“My favorite bags — I have two — the Baroque Baggy, which I carry during the spring and summer and the Piazza Messenger, which I carry in the fall/winter seasons,” Pauline said.
This handbag creator carries a lot more. She holds her dream and the dreams of others, as well.