German Vietnamese stylist and interior designer Thai-Cong Quach’s My Parents (2002) is a collection of portraits of his mother and father, Lang Leona Le (57) and Huu Thanh Quach (93). Each portrait is a collaboration between the son as stylist, the parents as models-actors, and a different photographer and designer’s clothes — Jil Sander, Versace, Givenchy, Yohji Yamamoto, Vivienne Westwood, Burberry, Ungaro, Joop!, Dries Van Noten, and more. (Each portrait’s making is also archived in a series of snapshots and anecdotes in the index). I may try to write more about these portraits, about how some bodies (elderly, Asian immigrant, Vietnamese refugee) breathe life into clothes in new and marvellous ways, but for now I’m moved to unexpected tears.
