Bach Mai Feature in Paper City by Clifford Pugh

Emerging fashion designer Bach Mai has been on a wild ride lately. Vogue has praised the 33-year-old Houston native as “an American Couturier in the Making” and Venus Williams, Tessa Thompson and Kate Beckinsale all recently appeared on the red carpet in glamorous sculpted gowns from his debut collection.

It’s pretty heady stuff for Mai, who was raised in West Houston as the son of Vietnamese immigrants and graduated from St. John’s School in 2007 before heading to New York to study at the Parsons School of Design and Paris, where he worked for John Galliano at Maison Margiela. In 2019, he returned to New York to launch his own brand, which has won rave reviews upon its recent pandemic-delayed launch.