Slot · slow-zoom still or 6s loop of hands setting shell into wet lacquer
Room 0 — The entrance
Three decades of Vietnamese craft.
One click away.
Handcrafted mother-of-pearl, lacquer and bamboo, directly from a Hanoi workshop that has supplied retailers in the US, Europe and Asia since 1999.
Where it began
Before MO-Home, there was a young woman at a state-owned handicraft company, in the years Vietnam first opened its doors to the world. Hoang Thu Hanh spent a decade bringing Vietnamese lacquer, shell and bamboo to buyers abroad, and learned that the maker almost never meets the person who lives with their work.
Placeholder · archival duotone — Hanoi handicraft office, 1990s
Exhibit 1 of 3 · placeholder data
Wall label
From a Paris fair to three hundred shelves
In 1999 she founded Sun Co.; a year later, MO-Home. The first collections debuted at Maison & Objet in Paris and at fairs across England. What once required a buyer's badge at a trade fair is now open to everyone.
- 1999Sun Co. founded
- 2000MO-Home born
- M&ODebut at Maison & Objet, Paris
- 300Retailers in 2 years
Crimson Bloom Set
$200
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Eclipse Set
$200
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Indigo Facet Set
$200
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Time, made visible
Every piece begins in our own workshop in Hung Yen, just outside Hanoi, and passes through many hands before it reaches yours: the selector's, the cutter's, the inlayer's, the polisher's.
Select
Each shell cleaned with sandpaper and chosen by hand; some capiz fired in a kiln until it turns a deep, rustic gold.
Placeholder · documentary — hands sorting shell on a wooden bench
Placeholder · documentary — shell cut to a template
Placeholder · documentary — shell being set into wet lacquer, overhead
Lacquer
Five or six more coats, each dried fully and sanded smooth before the next.
Placeholder · documentary — racks of trays drying between coats
Polish
A final finish until the surface holds the shell's light the way water does.
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
- Made in our own 5,000 m² workshop in Hung Yen
- About 120 craftspeople
- SMETA-audited yearly
No one in between
For more than two decades MO-Home reached homes through buyers, importers and store shelves. Today there is a second path: yours. Every order ships from the same workshop, with nothing added but the maker's name.
The old path
- Workshop
- Exporter
- Importer
- Distributor
- Store shelf
The second path
- Our workshop, Hung Yen
- Your home
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Factory-direct value
No intermediary margins between the maker's hands and your door.
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You know whose hands made it
Every piece traces to one workshop, one team, one name.
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Hanoi to your door
Shipped from our workshop in Vietnam. Sold in USD.
Current exhibits
Every piece one of a series, every series from one workshop.
Visit
The gallery has a door
Our showroom in central Hanoi.
No 43, Lane 378 Le Duan, Kim Lien Ward, Hanoi, Vietnam.
Private view
Private view
New collections are hung quietly. Leave your address and be the first to walk through.