Born in Danang in Vietnam, when she was less than a year old Yên Khê arrived in France with her parents and grew up between both cultures.
Although she studied at the Ecole Camondo in Paris, (School of Interior Architecture and Design), Yên Khê was attracted to the film industry and achieved success on the cinema screen by playing principal parts in the films “The Scent of the Green Papaya” and “Cyclo”.
“The Vertical Ray of the Sun” and “I Come With The Rain” prolonged her acting career.
However, her initial vocation caught up with her.
In 2010, she created the film sets and costumes for “Norwegian Wood”, adapted from Haruki Murakami’s novel. Later she took care of artistic direction for the film “Eternity” that came out on general release in 2016 and was inspired by Alice Ferney’s book “The Elegance of Widows“.
The year 2018 represented a turning point in her unusual journey with a return towards design.Her first furniture collection is the result of a personal challenge and a revelation.
With the Gosoï Collection comes a world of elegance and simplicity that she intends being both functional and accessible. Built upon the equilibrium of the oblique forms of the pieces’ legs, her furniture brings a sense of tension working in contrast with the feeling of serenity and lightness inherent in the Gosoï concept.
Within the continuity of the French design tradition of the 1950s and in using long-lasting and noble materials like the oak, Yên Khê pays homage to Jean Prouvé whom she greatly admires.
Here, she makes wonderful use of folded metal parts in order to resolve and eliminate the usual elements in construction that tend to blemish the pure nature of the furniture’s outline.
Sensitive to light, she uses French oak from Burgundy for its radiance, its warm character and its “living” potential, meaning its capacity to evolve with time. The combination of folded metal and solid oak guarantees a perennial aspect that can be passed down from generation to generation, an idea dear to Yên Khê who believes that the beauty of a piece of furniture is intensified with the passage of time and the traces that one leaves upon it.