Happiness Saigon and NIVEA Vietnam Helps Vietnamese Tribe Stay Traditional with Tailored Care

The Hmong tribes living in the northern Vietnamese mountains all have their own traditional clothing. The unique clothes are a part of their identity, children wear them proudly when walking to school and playing outside. But staying warm can be very challenging when the temperatures drop during winter. And the high humidity makes it even harder to preserve the body heat. This results in many Hmong people leaving their traditional jackets behind and switching to more modern clothes for winter.

To help the local people keep their traditions alive while still being sustainable, NIVEA Vietnam and Happiness Saigon launch NIVEA Tailored Care. An ongoing project where local tailors of Ha Giang are provided with a newly designed fabric to make the traditional clothes of the tribes winter-proof.

The Tailored Care fabric is created by recycling aluminium packaging, such as the iconic blue NIVEA Creme tins, and turning them into a highly insulating aluminium fabric. A blue cotton layer connects the two fabrics and makes the Tailored Care fabric soft on the skin. Alan Cerutti, Happiness Saigon CEO says: “After going north with NIVEA for the CSR project of last winter we saw how the local people never wore their traditional clothing when it’s cold. We’re very happy to have designed and developed a tailored solution for the children in the north of Vietnam. Tailored Care is a perfect example of how brand purpose and creativity generate value. In this case for the Hmong people as well as the NIVEA brand.”

The fabric is light, helps to keep 95% of the body warmth, is durable and breathable, and on top of continuing to keep people warm, it’s also taking care of something very precious. Their traditions. This winter, 1,500 traditional children’s jackets have been up-cycled. The project is on the path of

success and plans for an extension are in the works.