In today’s blog, I will be interviewing my friend, Tiffany Nguyen, who recently started her own jewelry line. The line is called DOANT (pronounced as do-wahnt) which is short for “Doan Trang” meaning ‘elegant’ in Vietnamese. The items in her line range from $20-30 and are specially handcrafted and customized. Her entire collection is available at doantstyle.com.
Tiffany sent me a piece from her collection called “CHAU” for me to try it for myself. CHAU features two pearls; one on top one on the bottom which represents balance and harmony— perfect for a Libra like myself! I love that Tiffany allows her customers to personalize whether they need clip-on or pierced earrings as well as change minor details to match the earring to your own, unique style.
Hamy: Can you introduce yourself to my readers?
Tiffany: My name is Tiffany or Doan Trang in Vietnamese. I am a second-generation Vietnamese-American womxn. I truly treasure my identity of being a Vietnamese womxn because growing up, I find that the Viet womxn in my life are incredibly strong people. It is known in the Vietnamese culture that men are dominant and view us as submissive. I don’t see it that way whatsoever and am truly empowered by the energy that these womxn bring forth.
Hamy: What inspired you to start your own jewelry business?
Tiffany: At first, I was sitting on Adobe Illustrator dreaming of creating a fashion brand one day but figured that may be extremely pricy (laughs). I then thought about what I saw a lack of. In my own experience, there was a lack of really dope earrings! Essentially, I had an idea–a surge of huge inspiration arose. I immediately rushed to find a paper and pen and started sketching out the ideas I had in my head. With that approach in mind, I started to wonder if people would actually buy this product, so I did some user testing and posted on a group page I felt comfortable with. Almost immediately, I got a rush of interest, which surprised me. If I wasn’t the only one who saw a need for this, I suppose it was a problem I could solve.
Hamy: What inspired the names of your earrings?
Tiffany: The names of the earrings were more of an afterthought, honestly. It wasn’t the first thing that I thought about when making the prototypes but as I was making the website, it asked for the name of each piece. I already had DOANT named after me, so I thought maybe I should name them all Vietnamese names as well. I did some research on some names and the meaning of all of them. I examined each earring piece and named them accordingly, kind of like giving them all a personality of different Vietnamese people (I tried picking out names that were used for all genders).
Hamy: Where do you see DOANT in 5 years?
Tiffany: One of my biggest goals with DOANT is to make enough to where I am able to partner with organizations and set up a system where, whatever profit I’m making, I am able to donate a certain percentage of it to them. Specifically, I want to work with organizations that work with preventing domestic violence and sexual assault in marginalized communities. Preferably, a global organization that works with Asia. This idea was kind of the root of it all–even before visualizing a company or brand.
That’s it for today’s blog! I would like to thank Tiffany for making this blog possible and also to everyone reading right now for taking the time out of your day to read this post. Please support Tiffany and DOANT by checking out their official website and following them on Instagram, and Facebook!
The Clothing Statement 