Vietnam has long been known for its strong garment manufacturing capabilities, but building a Vietnamese fashion brand that can compete internationally is a different challenge altogether.
In Episode 119 of Vietnam Innovators, host Tu An speaks with Pham Chi Nhu, Founder & CEO of Coolmate, about the gap between making products in Vietnam and building a brand from Vietnam.
7 Years in, Coolmate sells millions of products each year and is exploring opportunities in the U.S. and several Southeast Asian markets. Yet throughout the conversation, Nhu spends less time talking about visibility and more time on the parts customers rarely see: product development, supply chain, inventory, data, and quality control. To him, building a brand goes far beyond getting people to recognize its name.
Building A More Flexible Supply Chain
Vietnam has a clear advantage in garment manufacturing. Still, Nhu points out that much of the domestic supply chain has traditionally been built around large export orders, with local companies often focused on cutting, sewing, and finishing.
Building a brand requires a broader set of capabilities.
A company needs to understand what it wants to make, how a product should be designed, which materials to use, how samples are developed, and how quality is controlled.
That is why Coolmate has invested in its own design and product development teams, along with sample-making and product testing capabilities, instead of relying entirely on factories.
At the same time, greater control does not necessarily mean doing everything in-house.
Coolmate works with manufacturers of different sizes to create a more flexible supply chain. Smaller factories can support low-volume product tests, while larger ones can scale production once demand becomes clearer.
This flexibility matters in fashion, where one production decision can quickly turn into excess inventory.
Coolmate has experienced this firsthand. Out of around 20 new designs, sometimes only five become strong sellers. The challenge, then, is not simply to create more products, but to understand which products are most likely to work before committing to larger production runs.
To do that, Coolmate has started testing products in smaller quantities, surveying customers, taking pre-orders, and using sales data to forecast demand. AI-supported tools are also used in parts of the planning process.
The brand also puts significant focus on products that are less dependent on short-term trends. Around 70% of Coolmate’s sales currently come from lines that can continue from one season to the next. Rather than constantly replacing them, the brand improves quality, adds features, or introduces new colors.
Behind a simple everyday product, there is often a much more complex process involving data, production, and timing.
Growth Still Has To Match Execution
Coolmate also learned that growth can become difficult when the organization is not ready for it. After appearing on Shark Tank Vietnam, orders grew much faster than expected. Production had to speed up quickly, and quality issues followed. The company later had to recall a number of products.
For Nhu, the experience reinforced a simple lesson: growth has to match the organization’s ability to execute. A founder can continue coming up with new ideas, but turning those ideas into good products depends on the capabilities of the broader team.
Rethinking “Made In Vietnam”
The question of product and supply chain becomes even more important as Coolmate moves into international markets.
In the U.S., the brand chose Amazon as one of its early channels. Nhu notes that becoming a bestseller in a small Amazon category does not necessarily mean the business is profitable. After more than a year of testing different approaches, the operation only gradually moved closer to break-even.
What Coolmate gained, however, was a clearer idea of how it wants to compete. Rather than focusing on low prices or short-lived product trends, the brand wants to build a clearer positioning and a stronger long-term identity.
Nhu believes Vietnam already has advantages in manufacturing skills, product finishing, and the ability to produce technically demanding products. The next step is to add values that go beyond manufacturing itself: customer experience, transparency, responsibility, and brand storytelling.
Consumers increasingly want to know where products are made, what materials are used, how quality is checked, and what the company behind the product stands for. That is where the distinction between a product that is simply “Made in Vietnam” and a brand built from Vietnam starts to become more meaningful.
What Makes A Brand Feel “National”
A “national brand” is often associated with visibility: how widely it is used, how familiar the name feels, or how often people encounter it in everyday life. But Coolmate’s journey suggests that much of that familiarity is built through things customers do not necessarily see.
It comes from making the product well, testing it carefully, scaling production at the right time, maintaining quality as the business grows, and making better decisions about what should and should not be produced.
Customers may never see the factories, sample rooms, forecasting tools, or inventory meetings behind a product. But those systems shape the experience they eventually receive.
And for Nhu, this also connects to a broader ambition for “Made in Vietnam”: not just to show that Vietnam can manufacture good products, but to see more Vietnamese brands build the capabilities to stand behind those products in their own name.
Watch the full episode below: