Slot · documentary wide of the Hung Yen workshop floor
The craft · Nghia Tru Village, Hung Yen
Inside the workshop
5,000 m². About 120 craftspeople. Five steps between a raw shell and a finished surface, and no way to hurry any of them.
Select
Each shell is cleaned with sandpaper and chosen by hand. Some capiz is fired in a kiln until it turns a deep, rustic gold, the tone that gives the brand its single accent colour.
The selector
Placeholder · documentary — hands sorting shell on a wooden bench
Cut
Shells are cut into small pieces, by hand or by machine, shaped to the pattern. No two pieces are identical, so no two finished surfaces are either.
The cutter
Placeholder · documentary — shell cut into diamond pieces
Inlay
The pieces are set one by one into a base built up with lacquer and glue. This is the moment the film records.
The inlayer
Placeholder · documentary — shell being set into wet lacquer, overhead
Film
Watch · 2 min
MOP Diamond Inlay Process (subtitled) · upload the film in this section's settings
Lacquer
Then comes the patient part: five or six more coats of lacquer, each left to dry fully and sanded smooth before the next.
The lacquerer
Placeholder · documentary — racks of trays drying between coats
Polish
A final finish until the surface holds the shell's light the way water does. A single tray passes through many hands before it is finished.
The polisher
Placeholder · documentary — a hand polishing a finished tray, light on the surface
“This is not decoration applied by machine. It is time, made visible.”
Hoang Thu Hanh · Founder
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Workshop
Our own 5,000 m² workshop in Nghia Tru Village, Hung Yen. About 120 craftspeople. SMETA 4P audited yearly.
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Materials library
Mother-of-pearl · Capiz · Bamboo · Rattan · Seagrass · Water hyacinth · Vietnamese lacquer. Browse by material →
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Care guide
How to keep lacquer and shell inlay for decades. Care guide to come (content placeholder).