Vy Truong and Han Dang of Very Handsome Studio: 5 Things You Can Do to Help Your Living Space Spark More Joy
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Less is More — Of course a minimalist aesthetic may not be for everyone, but ensuring every item within your home has a designated location can help create tidiness and a stress-free living space. This will also ensure that decorative items in open spaces are seen as assistance to the sign of the space, rather than clutter that is littering your space.
As part of my series on the “5 Things You Can Do To Help Your Living Space Spark More Joy”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Vy Truong and Han Dang of Very Handsome Studio.
Very Handsome Studio is an interior boutique design firm based in Houston, Texas founded in 2020. The founding partners of VHS are two young and enthusiastic designers, Vy Truong and Han Dang, who share a combined 10 years of experience within the design field, across a variety of scales and sectors, including hospitality, commercial, education, and residential design.
With a distinct focus on residential and commercial projects, they aim to create informed spaces through creative designs and interesting storytelling to produce a provocative outcome that goes beyond just chasing trends.
Thank you so much for joining us in this series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
We both shared a unique passion for design since an early age. Han found her love for architecture and design from exposure to design magazines when she was younger, filling her walls with collages of cut out magazine pages. Vy found her passion for Interior Design from following her mother to many real estate listings and envisioning alternative lives for those homes. Our passion simply grew more ambitious after 4 years of the Interior Architecture program at the University of Houston College of Architecture and Design, where we met. Our itch for professional growth came after a long year of Covid isolation which led us to seek out opportunities to venture on our own. We have been grateful for that preposterous, courageous move ever since.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started this career?
Very Handsome Studio is still youthful in age so we don’t necessarily have the best collection of stories to tell. However, we do have a memorable experience we’d like to share! Our very first and most generous client, also started out as our most skeptical client. They definitely warmed up to our suggestions over time, after witnessing our competence in person. Starting with a quick call to help fixup the living room of their newly purchased home, we have now elevated every space in their home and have gained a wonderful trust. When we first began the project, they were unable to explain in detail what they DO like, but never hesitated to let us know what they DIDN’T like. So when they gleefully walked us through their home, like a kid in a candy store, and explained in detail why they liked or enjoyed the individual items/elements that we had chosen, we were deeply touched and so grateful. Their feedback and reaction really reinvigorated our love for the interior design and our self confidence. This experience shows that sticking it out through the toughest of projects will always pay off in the long run.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
We definitely have a few interesting lessons learned and a few not-so-funny mistakes made along the way. But perhaps the most important is knowing our worth and fighting for it. We’ve certainly crossed paths with clients who enjoy riding through life at the rate of “free, free, free.” As business owners, we were eager to show our worth and we were taken advantage of a few too many times. Now, we’ve learned to not show our cards so early in the design phase, and allow our work to speak for itself. A very memorable experience was being tricked to provide 3 hours of design consultations, free of charge, as we were misled into thinking that the client verbally confirmed our employment. You should have been there for the shock on our faces when we were humbly informed that we were one of FIVE different firms being “interviewed ‘’ for the small decorating project. This was a hard way to learn that our skillset should speak for itself and clients who are dishonest do not deserve our earnest services, anyways.
What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? How do you think that might help people?
We are definitely at the peak of interesting project lineups in our career and we’re so grateful for these opportunities. We are preparing for the opening of a Bodega-themed Burger joint with strong urban influence of Houston and New York. We are also in the stages of design for a speakeasy with a fantasy, alice-in-wonderland concept. The last project we’d like to share with you all is a “break room” with health and wellness as the focal point. The break room will highlight the importance of mental health and ultimately be a space for personal healing. We are honored to be part of these amazing businesses as they aim to provide unique experiences for their patrons. Houston has long been in need of unique spaces like these!
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
For Han, her quote is “Make it simple, but significant” (Don Draper, of course!) because of her minimal but efficient design style and living habits. Han finds pride in her work through the intricate, well intended, and thorough ergonomic details of design. She believes that minimalistic design should seem easy, yet is anything but. For Vy, she believes that her “Life Lesson Quote” has slowly transformed into “Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.” (Mark Twain) as she experiences this new period of owning a business. As a harsh self-critic, Vy does stumble and fall in a profession she *should* have a full understanding in. However, every project, every event, and every year of growth have been a unique experience; with every mistake we’re ensuring a lesson was learned.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
Of course we have our families to thank for the continual, and often unwanted, push towards positive thought and positive actions. Besides that, we are tremendously grateful for Melissa Davis, an ex colleague and great friend who assisted in pushing us forward and starting the train of actual large scale work with our current clients. As two very timid, and introverted minority women, we had a difficult time gaining trust as opportunities came our way. Melissa worked with Very Handsome Studio as our Business Manager and Client Liaison, and was able to secure many contracts for us as well as boost our professional confidence. Without Melissa’s efforts from the beginning stages, we would not have been able to gain such great traction and forward growth.
Thank you for that. Here is the main question of our discussion. What are your “5 Things You Can Do To Help Your Living Space Spark More Joy” and why. Please share a story or example for each.
1. Less is More — Of course a minimalist aesthetic may not be for everyone, but ensuring every item within your home has a designated location can help create tidiness and a stress-free living space. This will also ensure that decorative items in open spaces are seen as assistance to the sign of the space, rather than clutter that is littering your space.
2. More is More — Certainly in contrast with line item 1, this tip pertains to design styles and elements that may be more personal or memorable. A space that is designed does not have to be stripped of personality. We believe that incorporating items that carry meaning, emotion, or significance to those inhabiting it, will immediately spark natural joy. If a pattern reminds you of home, don’t be afraid to incorporate it into your space whether it lives on curtains, a modest throw pillow, or as the entire couch. Select significant and fulfilling items to make the center of attention and grow your design around those items. Different patterns and colors can definitely live together in harmony as long as there is hierarchy and meaning for those items to exist in the space.
3. Invite the outdoors in — This tip is quite self explanatory. Even if you don’t have a green thumb, sprinkling elements of nature throughout your space will elevate your home and bring a unique sense of comfort only mother nature can provide. Neutral wall decors, jute rugs, dried florals, or even natural wood grains are masters at providing the illusive sense of fresh air.
4. Know who you’re designing for — Whether approaching a large-scale design or a tiny decorating project, the intentions to design for yourself or those mainly occupying the space will not only make the design process easier, but create joyful engagements between the occupants and the space. Oftentimes, we birth fairytales and personal anecdotes for our clients through our designs, as they approach a project to help guide the most tailored space for them or their chosen audience. As long as the space is designed with meaning and not forced to chase trends, those spaces will always spark ample amounts of joy.
5. Never settle — Spaces are meant to grow and change. We often describe thoughtful design as spaces that are breathing and maturing. As the space flexes to its inhabitants, it’s also meant to shift and readjust. Therefore, never settling is simply the advice to not fear changing up the space where it’s needed. Just as a Living Room can change with the seasons, a dining space can adjust its design to the changing environments and patron influx. Never think that design is meant to provide permanence. Good design is meant to evolve!
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
If we were in possession of such power, we would certainly enact a movement to respect and emphasize design in every aspect of life. As natives of Houston, TX, we are extremely familiar with the consistent mindset from our clients that design is a luxury. With the rise of business opportunities, marketable ideas, and extreme dependency on modern technology, creativity will continue to prevail as one of the most important credentials of the Twenty-second Century. With the amount of opportunities we have at our fingertips, there’s really no excuse for anything to not look good or perform well. Design will ensure that to be the standard.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might see this, especially if we tag them 🙂
Oh gosh, this is a tough question to answer. There are just so many transcending individuals we’d love to pick the brains of. Perhaps we would gain the most humbling lesson from a breakfast of champions with icons like Elon Musk or Bjarke Ingels, and dissect where they draw energy for their persistence towards change. These designers are also inventors and blind believers of their craft, understanding far sooner than the rest of us what is needed to push us towards necessary growth.
How can our readers follow you on social media?
We appreciate your interest in our budding venture! You can further explore our work and see our faces on our instagram: @veryhandsome.studio, or our facebook: Very Handsome Studio, and of course a collection of our tailored portfolio directly from our website: www.veryhandsomestudio.com.
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational!
Vy Truong and Han Dang of Very Handsome Studio: 5 Things You Can Do to Help Your Living Space Spark… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.