AsiaLIFE

For over ten years, Ambre has been a leading force in creativity and style. Designers Romyda Keth and Thomas Jaffre reflect on the present and future of fashion in Cambodia. Words by Mai Lynn Miller Nguyen. Photo by James Grant.

In 1999, Phnom Penh was a far cry from the bustling metropolis it has become today. Art galleries, cafés and shops were few and far between.

Yet that was the year Romyda Keth opened Ambre, the store and showroom for her clothing line. Her use of vibrant colours, high-quality silks and inspired silhouettes caused a sensation.

The Cambodian-born designer’s work displays her cosmopolitan sensibilities. She spent the majority of her life in the world’s fashion capital, where she studied at the Paris School of Fine Arts and the Esmod School of Fashion Design. After a designing stint for American department store Macy’s, she launched her own venture, a boutique in Paris’s chic sixth arrondissement.

Keth returned to her birthplace in 1994. She continued to design and produce clothing, exporting back to clients in France before she eventually launched her Phnom Penh shop.

Though she now sells boutiques in Chile, Ho Chi Minh City, La Réunion, Manila, Mexico, Paris, Singapore, Puerto Rico and Tokyo, Keth continues to work from the Phnom Penh headquarters, where her creations are first debuted. Her original team of four staff members has grown to include nearly 100 people.

For over three years, Thomas Jaffre has joined as designer for the men’s line. He extends Keth’s aesthetic to menswear, matching colours and details from the women’s collection.

Set in a picturesque colonial villa on Street 178, Ambre features an ever-evolving selection, as Keth and Jaffre design and produce as inspiration strikes.

The first stop on many a tourist’s shopping tour of Phnom Penh, Ambre also draws a regular base of expats and an increasing number of Cambodian clientele.

It has been over a decade since Ambre was inaugurated. The city may have grown, but Ambre still retains the cachet it has had since the start.

How do you maintain Ambre’s high standard of quality?

Romyda Keth: A lot of people are asking me, why don’t you go further and develop more? We already have ten shops, and people keep on asking me, why not more? I’m not sure I’m really
interested in more. I like to control everything, I like to go step by step. We’re not like Mango or Zara. I don’t want to be a chain. I prefer to work with passion and with love, and wake up every day being happy to be here instead of having 100 different shops everywhere in the world.

Thomas Jaffre: There is always a human touch. Romyda likes to be in touch with the factory, with what happens there, with what is happening overseas. You can also see Romyda in the shop. A lot of customers tell me that they’re very happy to meet Romyda in person. They say, “She is going to pin my pants?”

What is the relevance of fashion for Cambodia?

RK: I think everything that is related to art, not only fashion, is very important. We were artists, you can see in Angkor Wat and all our history. If you see the old movies of the King, they were all very elegant. I think it needs to come back, we can rebuild culture and free this artistic sense. It’s been careless for too many years.

TJ: Designers are trying to find their own way. It seems to be faster for photography or painting, but I think it’s going to continue for fashion. It’s a pity to say, but the most interesting Cambodians in fashion are the ones coming from overseas. Here, not yet. But it’s going to come, of course.

How is the arrival of international clothing brands impacting the fashion market?

RK: There are always customers for that type. It’s moving, it’s great. My reproach would be that they present it as high fashion. Khmer people think it’s something like Christian Dior. It’s
not correct to present it that way, for people who don’t know it, it’s not fair.

TJ: It’s the same as saying McDonalds is very well known, but it’s not La Duree.

RK: Of course, it’s good for Cambodia to have those big chains coming, but I hope we never forget that the small designers must exist. If you go to cities like Paris or London now, it’s just chains and chains, there’s Top Shop, H&M, Zara. Young designers start to disappear because they cannot survive with all those big shops. It’s a pity, a real pity.

What future do you see for the local fashion industry?

RK: I think there’s a strong emergence of real artists and creativity. I think the period of copying is finished. We hope there’s going to be more and more real designers, creative designers. It’s coming in fashion as well. Recently there was the Salon des Créateurs. It was very interesting to see all those different designers, there were fashion designers, art designers, painters.

TJ: Now each time we see someone who is trying to have his own style, we buy something. It’s going to help them to be selfconfident. Fashion needs help here. That’s also why Romyda was part of the Salon des Créateurs show. People go to the show if they know Romyda is going to be there. We saw that it wasn’t about copies or brands, it was about young designers.

What is your advice for young Cambodian designers?

RK: Be themselves. Work hard. Create, don’t copy, create. All of us have a talent.