TWENTY YEARS OF CHULA

Diego Cortizas del Valle and Laura Fontan Pardo met at 21 and 19 respectively, during their university years in Madrid, where Diego studied architecture and Laura political science. Their shared passions for cinema, photography, and music, together with their curiosity and openness to the world around them, brought them together.

Over the following years, they each explored their paths in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, Lisboa, and Bisáu before marrying in 2001 in A Coruña, Galicia, where they had both coincidentally spent their summers, and where their father originated.

One day, Laura asked Diego to create a design to be painted on a black skirt she wanted tailored for a party, and Diego quickly made dozens of versions. The skirt's popularity led Diego, the following week, to create more than 100 sketches for the skirt, depicting lines, maps, faces, custodian objects, and free-lines, filled with the humor and creativity that would be characteristic of Chula’s early style .

Diego and Laura move with their two young children, Carmen and Pablo, into a newly built postmodernist house on Âu Cơ, overlooking the West lake on what was then considered the outskirts of Hanoi.

A series of interconnected rooms and gardens opened onto a long exterior corridor and an expansive balcony, while a narrow tower offered views across the city. The family bedrooms were on the upper level, while the kitchen and living room were downstairs, coexisting with the showroom and reception along the corridor.

Suzanne Letch, founder of Art Vietnam Gallery, then Vietnam’s most prominent gallery, had begun collecting Chula’s early dresses when they began to sell in Ipa-Nema. As Diego’s interest in Vietnam’s contemporary art scene grew, he attend one of Suzanne’s exhibition openings at the gallery’s space on 7 Nguyễn Khắc Nhu Street. He introduced himself to Suzanne with an idea, that for each of her future exhibitions, he would create a dress inspired by the artists and works on display.

The proposal marked the beginning of a lasting friendship and creative dialogue between Chula Fashion House and Art Vietnam Gallery. This exchange also marked an important step in Chula’s growing relationship with Vietnam’s contemporary art community. 

In 2010, Chula hosted the Spanish photographer Miguel Trillo, known for his photographs of the Movida Madrileña, with his exhibition Gigasiapolis – A Portrait of Asian Youth Culture in Asian Megatropolises. During his time in Hanoi, Trillo photographed Vietnamese journalist, cultural media consultant, and Hanoi Grapevine director Uyen Ly wearing Chula’s “Spider is Coming” dress from the Animal Collection, its second themed collection, created the previous year.

The photograph reflects Trillo’s characteristic pop visual language, placing a strikingly pop subject against the everyday setting of the backyard of Chula’s landlords. The encounter captures the dynamism that Hanoi’s cultural scene was beginning to have in the early 2010s, and where Chula was becoming an active participant.

These pieces were used throughout the garden, the family home, and Chula's showrooms, gradually becoming part of the distinctive environment of Chula House.

As a result, The Chula Space became increasingly vibrant; Diego painted directly on its walls, creating interventions that responded to Chula’s collections, the time of year, and the events taking place in the space.

Chula takes part in the world’s highest fashion runway, suspended 1,219 meters above the Grand Canyon. Models walk along the horseshoe-shaped glass bridge, creating the illusion of floating above the canyon's vastness.

Chula opens its fourth store, its second in Hanoi, in the heart of the capital’s Old Quarter, beside St. Joseph’s Cathedral.

That year, Diego and Laura work with their dear friend Nguyễn Thảo Vân and the Will to Live Center (Nghị Lực Sống). Under the motto “I am beautiful, you too,” they support a fashion show where people with disabilities take their place both on the catwalk and behind the scenes, from presenting the collections to helping produce the event. More than a fashion show, it becomes a celebration of diversity and a statement that there should be a place for everyone in fashion.

Chula launched the Reflections Concept, an idea rooted in Diego’s longstanding fascination with the distortions, repetitions, and unexpected compositions created by reflections. Since arriving in Vietnam, he had photographed reflections wherever he encountered them — in puddles, car windows, shop displays, and other everyday surfaces.

The concept translated this fascination into a new visual language. Using Instagram, Diego would photograph a detail of an image, invert and duplicate it, and repeat the process to create symmetrical, pattern-like compositions. He then printed these images on silk designs, generating an almost infinite number of possible compositions from the world around him.

Chula introduced a new way of connecting with its international community through a traveling pop-up model around the world. These gatherings became opportunities for old clients and friends to reconnect with Chula and with one another, while allowing new networks to encounter the brand for the first time.

Chula began the Diego Chula Legacy project with Heritage Art Space, undertaking the enormous task of documenting and preserving the body of work Diego left behind. The archive brings together collections, photographs, sketches, music, events, and other materials accumulated throughout his career at Chula.

More than a record of his creative output, it testifies to how Diego’s work continually blurred the boundaries between the personal and the public, between fashion, art, family, and everyday life.

Chula marked two decades since Diego began creating its first designs in Hanoi, celebrating the anniversary with friends of the brand at the Chula House and a feature in the pages of Vogue Singapore.