Understanding Vietnamese Lacquerware

Sơn mài - Vietnam's traditional lacquer technique - is one of those crafts where the finished object gives away almost nothing about how long it actually took. A good piece looks effortless. It is not.

The process is built from layers, not a single coat. Lacquer, drawn from the sap of the sơn tree, is applied in successive coats over a wood or bamboo form, and Hanoia's Đăng lamps are hand-sanded between every one of those layers before the next goes on. That sanding is the part that actually matters - not to remove lacquer, but to reveal it, since each layer is naturally a little translucent and the depth builds as more of them stack up.

This is the easiest way to tell real lacquerware from a painted or varnished imitation: look into the surface rather than at it. Genuine sơn mài has real depth - your eye reads several layers down, the way you'd read into still water, because the colour genuinely is several layers down. A painted or varnished surface is flat by comparison; the colour sits on top, and there's nowhere for the eye to go.

Touch matters too. Properly finished lacquer is glass-smooth after all that sanding, but it doesn't feel like plastic - there's a slight warmth and weight to it that a sprayed lacquer coating over a cheaper base doesn't have.

Hanoia has been making lacquerware this way since 1997, from a traditional lacquer village near Hanoi where the craft has been passed down for generations. Keep pieces out of direct, prolonged sun and away from sudden heat, which is what actually damages lacquer over time - not ordinary handling.

Shop our Hanoia collection, hand-built and hand-sanded in Vietnam.