This Hmong American Fashion Designer’s Star Shines Bright

Attending fashion shows is a delight of the senses. Even veterans with front-row access wait to be surprised and wowed and yearn for something they may not have quite seen before. From the recent spring season’s portfolio of Twin Cities shows, we’re shining a light on Mai See Heurh Vue, an emerging Hmong American who wowed the local fashion scene with her mini—albeit dramatic—collection at Fashion Week Minnesota’s Coalesce, an AAPI-centered fashion show and collective aimed at showcasing Minnesota’s Asian American and Pacific Islander talent and creating more visibility for the community.

“I’m big on dualities of culture and experiences—young and old, past and future.”

Mai See Heurh Vue

By day, Heurh works as an apparel designer for Target, and at night, she’s hunkering down in her St. Paul home studio and dreaming up clean, modern, and architectural garments for her label M.Heurh Designs. Heurh’s all about telling stories with her designs. “I’m big on dualities of culture and experiences—young and old, past and future,” says Heurh. “There’s such a beauty and uniqueness in bringing contrasting elements together and seeing them work to create something magical.”

For the dynamic designer, it’s important that no two collections feel the same. Take her debut line, Amidst, which draws inspiration from the well-known Hmong flower scarf seen worn by women while shopping at local markets. “I was inspired to bring the old and new Hmong generations together and showcase the beauty created when these two worlds collided,” says Heurh of the collection, which focused on using nontraditional materials with traditional textiles to show the future embracing the past of the Hmong people. In her most recent collection, Super Nova, she juxtaposed masculine and feminine elements to create all-black pieces inspired by outer space and the chaos that takes place when a star experiences a luminous stellar explosion.

While Heurh’s designs are made to order for custom clients only, we lucky locals can also rent the runway—all garments from past and current collections are available for short-term use for photo shoots, weddings, or special events. @m.heurh_designs