The Evening — Corthay in Saigon

A First for Vietnam

Trunk shows are not new to international menswear circles. But for Corthay — a brand with no official presence in Southeast Asia — the evening at Marcher was the first time Vietnamese customers could access the brand the right way: in person, in a small room, with the brand's representative at the same table.

Sony Mai brought Corthay's most representative models, including the Arca — a crocodile leather shoe with hand-applied burgundy patina. Guests tried the lasts, handled the leather, and watched the depth of the patina shift under different light.

"For the first time I could hold a Corthay — before this I had only seen them in photographs."

Sony Mai and the Patina

What nobody expected was that Sony Mai had brought his full set of dye bowls and brushes. During the evening he gave a live demonstration — applying colour layer by layer onto leather, explaining why each coat needs to dry completely before the next. Nobody in the room looked at their phone.

That is what a trunk show does that Instagram cannot: it makes you understand why a pair of shoes takes three months.

The Arca — Shoe of the Evening

If one shoe defined the evening, it was the Arca. Crocodile leather, finished in a burgundy patina that runs from near-black at the sole to deep crimson at the toe. The shoe looks beautiful in photographs. In person, under Marcher's light, it looks like something else entirely.