In the years when Vietnam first opened its doors to trade with the world, Hoang Thu Hanh spent a decade at a state-owned handicraft export company in Hanoi, bringing the work of Vietnamese artisans (lacquer, shell, bamboo) to buyers abroad. Those years taught her two things: that the world loves what Vietnamese hands can make, and that the maker almost never gets to meet the person who lives with their work.

In 1999 she founded Sun Co. in Hanoi, and a year later the MO-Home brand was born. The first collections debuted at Maison & Objet in Paris and at fairs across England. Within two years, three hundred retailers were stocking the collection.

Every piece begins in the MO-Home workshop in Hung Yen, just outside Hanoi, where about 120 craftspeople work with materials drawn from Vietnam's land and sea: mother-of-pearl and capiz shell, bamboo, rattan, seagrass, water hyacinth, wood and lacquer.

For most of its history, MO-Home reached customers through layers of buyers, importers and store shelves. Now an order placed with MO-Home passes through no intermediaries. Each piece comes directly from the workshop, with something no middleman could pass along: knowing whose hands made it.