Christine Phung, Franco-Cambodian fashion designer: a neighbour’s name, a Parisian label
She was born in Levallois-Perret to a Cambodian father and a French mother. Her surname is not her family’s: her father took it to escape the Khmer Rouge. Winner of the ANDAM prize in 2013 and former creative director of Léonard, Christine Phung now runs her own label while working for Aigle. A look at a career in which Cambodia arrived late, but stayed.
A name borrowed from a dead neighbour
In Christine Phung’s family, everyone is called Trinh. Except her. That small detail of civil status sums up her father’s story.
Under the Khmer Rouge, the eldest son, then eighteen, risked being drafted and was barred from leaving the country. Christine’s father, the middle of three brothers, gave him his papers and his identity. He was left without a name of his own. He took that of a neighbour who had died, a man of Vietnamese origin: Phung. He then made his way to Macau, while the rest of the family began arriving in France.
Christine Phung learned early on that her name was not the “real” one. She says Phung is a common surname, almost empty of meaning, and that this helped her stand apart from her own name. She also points out that the word evokes the phoenix. She likes the image. Her Cambodian first name, she says, is Mei Ling.
A childhood without Cambodia
She grew up with her mother, in the Paris region, and saw her father from time to time. He was not, she says, someone who passed on the culture. The family history had left him fragile. Her grandmother forbade the family to go back to Cambodia, so terrified was she of the Khmer Rouge. Nobody had set foot there since 1975.
Back to Phnom Penh at thirty
It was Christine who reopened the door, at around the age of thirty. In Phnom Penh she found cousins and an uncle, Dr Ka Sunbaunat, a psychiatrist and professor at the faculty of medicine. He took part in the Khmer Rouge trial and set up a mental health service that treats both the children of victims and the children of perpetrators, where Western medicine and Asian care meet.
He gave her the bearings she lacked. He even offered to adopt her, as families did after the genocide to take in children left without parents. She called her father. He agreed.
The uncle also gave her a room to turn into a sewing workshop. Christine Phung says that trip was the birth of her label. She has gone back to Phnom Penh every year since, and the rest of the family followed her lead.
Duperré, the IFM and eight years of apprenticeship
Her training follows a classic French fashion path. After the Beaux-Arts in Rueil-Malmaison, she entered the École d’art appliqué Duperré, graduating in 2001, then the Institut français de la mode (IFM) in 2002. She did internships at Jean-Paul Gaultier, Sonia Rykiel and Kenzo.
She then worked at Christophe Lemaire, See by Chloé, Vanessa Bruno and Baby Dior. On the sportswear side, she designed pieces for Lacoste, Rossignol and Veja, the ethical sneaker brand.
She wanted her own label early, but her IFM classes showed her what it would cost. So she waited eight years, saved money and built a network of photographers, architects and fabric sourcers. She launched at 32. Her motto: “Jump off the cliff and build your wings on the way down.”
Winning competitions to fund a collection
Her launch method comes down to one word: competitions. She explains that a young designer has to be known to the press, and the press follows winners. The prize money also pays for collections. She learned to spot each jury’s unspoken wish, to read a competition like a client.
It worked. In 2011 she received the Grand Prix de la Création de la Ville de Paris, in the established fashion category. The same year she was a finalist at the MANGO Fashion Awards (2011-2012), and says she won 10,000 euros there. The City of Paris housed her for two years at the Ateliers de Paris, the city’s fashion business incubator.
Her first collection was shown in 2012. It was produced 75% in France, the rest in Cambodia. In 2013 she won the ANDAM prize for first collections, often compared to an Oscar of fashion. Only three designers were left in the running. She says she did yoga every day for a month before facing the jury.
She showed at Paris Fashion Week for four seasons, then decided in September 2015 to stop. That same year she won first prize in the “Aubusson aime la mode” competition, with the Cité internationale de la tapisserie (15,000 euros). In 2018 came the Elegance Talent Award at the Luxury and Creation Talent Awards.
Prints, pleats, couture sportswear
Her signature is graphic. She says she starts from a story, then looks for fabrics and volumes. Her very first collection told of a girl who falls into a red diamond mine: patchwork, light breaking into colour. Another drew on lava and volcanoes, with eyebrows painted orange to match the models’ sunglasses.
She keeps coming back to prints and pleats. In her view, pleating blurs the pattern: the same design on smooth fabric and then pleated does not say the same thing. She has also worked with artists, including Philippe Decrauzat for spring-summer 2016 and Thomas Mercier, winner of the 2003 Marcel Duchamp prize, for winter 2017.
She dresses, she says, “explorers”: contemporary women who do not live in nostalgia for vintage. Her mix of couture and sportswear has become her line.
Léonard: four and a half years at the head of creation
At the end of 2015, the house of Léonard, founded in 1958 and known for its prints, was looking for an artistic director. Christine Phung was recommended by an official of the Fédération de la couture, for her work on pleats, colour, prints and silk. She took up the post in 2016 while keeping her own label, and also designed a capsule for Georges Rech.
Her first show for Léonard took place on 3 October 2016 at the Grand Palais. She had imagined a woman going to a cocktail party in the jungle and getting lost. The house prints were there, but exploded, almost abstract, and the trade press praised a collection full of energy. She left Léonard in 2020, after more than four years.
She then spent two years as image artistic director at Princesse Tam Tam.
An “arty and sustainable” fashion
Since October 2022 she has led the collections and image of La Française, a knitwear brand made in France, whose workshops are in Normandy. In 2023 she relaunched her own label with limited editions in organic cotton, made in France and printed to Ecocert standards. The range includes genderless shirts, a fitted dress and a sarong-scarf. She speaks of a fashion that must reconcile opposite poles.
She teaches at the IFM, which helps fund her label.
Aigle since October 2025
She joined Aigle in October 2025. Her professional profile lists her as the brand’s artistic director, and a trade source mentions a capsule of women’s pieces designed for it. She continues to run her Paris label alongside.
Key dates
• 11 October 1978: born in Levallois-Perret
• 2001: graduates from École Duperré
• 2002: IFM
• 2011: launches her label, wins the Grand Prix de la Création de la Ville de Paris
• 2013: ANDAM prize for first collections
• 2015: Aubusson aime la mode prize
• 2016-2020: artistic director of Léonard
• 2018: Elegance Talent Award (Luxury and Creation Talent Awards)
• Since October 2022: La Française
• Since October 2025: Aigle
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