When Mimi Lan Hoang Nguyen, the daughter of two Vietnamese painters, was growing up in Vietnam, her parents told her not to take an artistic path through life.

If you are an artist, they said, you will not make a living. Better to choose something reliable, like economics or politics.

"I am bad at math, so I chose politics," says Hoang Nguyen, who this year graduated from Charles University's Faculty of Social Sciences, where she specialized in international relations. "But my main passion is designing clothes."

At the age of 28, this exquisitely delicate-looking Vietnamese woman with the thin voice of a 10-year-old manages a chain of four family-owned stores in Prague called Lifestyle, which sell high-end Asian porcelain and Oriental-style clothing she designs under her own brand name: La femme Mimi.

"This is my work, my fun and passion all in one," she says about the business she started with her mother and brother in 2000.

"I have problems working for someone else. If I got a job as a secretary, my boss would have fired me the next day. I like to do things my way and I am convinced it is right."

Hoang Nguyen came to the Czech Republic in 1994 at the age of 16 to visit her mother, who had emigrated and had been studying and teaching painting for nine years at the Academy of Fine Arts.

Until that time, Hoang Nguyen saw her mother rarely, but looked forward to the regular Czech postcards, candies and clothes that arrived in the mail.

"I had special feelings for Czechoslovakia," she says.

Hoang Nguyen had planned to stay for one year during that visit in 1994. Twelve years later, she is married to a Czech man and is expecting her first child.

Designed in Hanoi

Several years after Hoang Nguyen's arrival, mother and daughter decided to start a business to sell their hand-designed porcelain.

They had about $10,000 (225,900 Kč) borrowed from Hoang Nguyen's 80-year-old grandmother, as startup money.

"We went all out for it," says Hoang Nguyen. "I was the young brain and my mother was the classic one."

"At that time, people here did not drink tea much, mostly coffee. So in the beginning our business was very weak, just miserable."

Things changed as Czechs became more open to new trends and cuisine that had been unavailable during the communist era. Suddenly, there was a demand for Asian tea sets among customers and restaurants.

For the first two years, the family had to work seven days a week performing multiple jobs at the company.

"My brother was a company designer and warehouse man at the same time. I am the director and a shop assistant. A customer can call any time and we are rushing to fulfill his or her order."

All profits were reinvested into the business. Today, Lifestyle employs 10 people in Vietnam, who do much of the manufacturing, and 11 in the Czech Republic.

Hoang Nguyen's true passion has always been clothing.

In 2002, she started designing her limited collections of clothes, which found a following fast.

"I don't sell my collections at H&M or Marks & Spencer, but I have my group of customers and they come back looking for new things."

She produces mainly Oriental-style designer clothes and purses with detailed embroidery and rich colors, something she describes as "between ethno and the European culture."

Her clothes are made of pure Vietnamese and Chinese silks and have a traditional Eastern look, despite being designed to suit a European woman.

Hoang Nguyen is acutely aware of the need to adjust her designs for European tastes and lifestyle.

"Girls in Vietnam only carry tiny purses that can accommodate a wallet, mobile and keys. I cannot apply such fashion here, because European women are different. Women here are very practical. They are fast, running everywhere."

Pavla Michalková, a Czech clothing designer who owns two boutiques in downtown Prague with her sister Olga, says her friendly competitor's clothes are interesting. "They can find their place in Prague," she observes.

Hoang Nguyen's collections change twice a year, and not just her clothing line but also porcelain and accessories.

Besides designing regular collections, she also creates wedding dresses and ball gowns on special orders, and plans to open a salon specializing in these next May.

'I know their tastes'

While Hoang Nguyen's mother and brother are more involved with the technical side of the business in Vietnam, she's the one who decides how the store's collections will look.

"I have many friends among Czechs and foreigners living in the Czech Republic. I am involved in their lives and know their tastes."

Hoang Nguyen is convinced that knowing and understanding local customs and being actively involved in the everyday lives of Czech people — she speaks fluent Czech, along with English and French — is key to succeeding in this country, where thousands of other immigrants from Vietnam have also started new lives.

"It is a top priority for me, as I think it should be for every foreigner who wants to make it here. The Czech language is very hard for me. But I think if I lived in Israel or Lebanon, or anywhere else in the world, I would have learned the language."

It took her about five years to feel integrated in her adopted country.

"In the beginning, I felt completely lost here and missed Vietnam terribly."

Things got better when she started interacting with Czechs. "I am trying to be present everywhere and mix with different people. As soon as there is some event or my Czech friends invite me to their homes, I go immediately. It is very important for me. I have a Czech husband, excellent in-laws. I still feel it is not enough."

Ever developing her feel for Europe's markets and cultures, she travels around the Continent almost every year, often staying with friends in Scandinavia, Italy, Spain, France and the Balkans.

In the early days, this energetic creator also thrived on multiple trips to Hungary and Poland to see the differences among peoples and their tastes.

Building on growth

As for the future, the venture looks likely to continue building on growing retail success and design work.

Further integration for both the business and its clientele is clearly also in the cards. This past July, Hoang Nguyen's mother-in-law organized a Vietnamese cultural weekend at the Prague Botanical Garden and Hoang Nguyen herself plans to one day open a civic association to promote Vietnamese culture in the Czech Republic.

Although Vietnamese make up the third-largest immigrant community in the country after Ukrainians and Slovaks, they still struggle against stereotypes; they're largely viewed by Czechs as sellers of cheap, low-quality clothes and knockoffs of expensive Western brands.

Like many other Vietnamese, Hoang Nguyen still encounters the occasional disparaging remark, the joke at her expense. She brushes them off.