During the Nguyen period - the final dynasty in Vietnam, young women wore light brown-colored short shirts with long black skirts. Their headgear consisted of a black turban with a peak in the front. To make their waist look smaller, they fasten a long piece of pink or violet cloth. On formal occasions, they wore a special three-layered dress called an "ao dai", a long gown with slits on either side. The outer garment was a special silk gown called an "ao tu than" which was brown or light brown in color with four slits divided equally on its lower section. The second layer was a gown in a light yellow color and the third layer was a pink gown. When a woman wore her three gowns, she fastened the buttons on the side, and leaved those on the chest unfastened so that it formed a shaped collar. This allowed her to show the different colors on the upper part of the three gowns. Beneath the three gowns was a bright red brassiere which was covered the woman's neck.
Together with “ao tu than”, there’s an indispensable thing - “non quai thao” - a flat palm hat with fringes. Yet the women in the North loved to wear brown shirts, whereas in the Central and South provinces, women usually wore black, middle- buttoned shirts. By the end of Tu Duc’s dynasty, a special shirt called “ao ba ba” was introduced in the South. Bibliographies described that men wore brocade or gauze-made gowns, crepe turbans, and buffalo-leathered slippers.
Up to the beginning of 19 century, women in all parts of the country knew the value of cosmetics. In 1935, “Le Mur” long dress appearance was a remarkable event. It was a mandarin collared, puff-sleeved dress. At first, the “Le Mur” dress had several features borrowed from European dresses current at that time, and was considered the most modern fashion. Over time, the traditional "ao dai" has gone through certain changes. Long gowns are now carefully tailored to fit the body of a Vietnamese woman. The two long slits along the side allow the gown to have two free floating panels in the front and at the back of the dress. The floating panels expose a long pair of white silk trousers.
An elegant looking conical palm hat, which is traditionally known as a "non bai tho" (a hat with poetry written on it), is worn as part of a woman's formal dress. This traditional conical hat is particularly suitable for a tropical country such as Vietnam, where fierce sunshine and hard rain are commonplace.
To make a conical hat, a hat maker chooses young palm leaves and lets them be dried under the sunshine. Attached beneath the almost transparent layers of dried palm leaves is a drawing of a small river wharf. Below the drawing, there is a piece of poetry to be recited by the hat wearer.
Under the effect of social development, Vietnamese costume has gradually changed. In 1945, women started wearing black trousers and brown short shirts. European fashion influenced men clothes. The traditional set of a long gown and turban gave way to more modern looking suits, while business shirts and trousers were replaced traditional long sleeved shirts and wide trousers.
In recent years some foreign fashions have been introduced to Vietnam; it’s now easy to find young boys and girls in Western-style clothes imitated international music bands in big cities. Daily costumes of the Vietnamese people tend to be very simple and modest. Men wear shirts, trousers. Young women wear shirts with trousers or skirts. However, the traditional "ao dai" remains preferable to women in both urban and rural settings. Traditional costumes still exist and efforts are increasingly being made to restore traditional festivals and entertainment, which incorporate traditional costumes.
Early gowns
Until the twentieth century, peasant women typically wore a skirt (váy) and a halter top (áo yếm). Influenced by the fashions of China's Qing, or Manchu, imperial court, aristocrats favored less revealing clothes. In 1744, Lord Nguyễn Phúc Khoát of Huế decreed that both men and women at his court wear trousers and a gown with buttons down the front. The members of the southern court were thus distinguished from the courtiers of the Trịnh Lords in Hanoi, who wore a split-sided jacket and a long skirt.
The áo tứ thân, a traditional four-paneled gown, evolved into the five-paneled ngũ thân in the early 19th century. Ngũ is Sino-Vietnamese for "five." It refers not only to the number of panels, but also to the five elements in oriental cosmology. The ngũ thân had a loose fit and sometimes had wide sleeves. Wearers could display their prosperity by putting on multiple layers of fabric, which at that time was costly. Despite Vietnam's tropical climate, aristocrats were known to wear three to five layers.
The ngũ thân had two flaps sewn together in the back, two flaps sewn together in the front, and a "baby flap" hidden underneath the main front flap. The gown appeared to have two-flaps with slits on both sides, features preserved in the later aodai. Compared to a modern aodai, the front and back flaps were much broader and the fit looser. It had a high collar and was buttoned in the same fashion as a modern aodai. Women could wear the dress with the top few buttons undone, revealing a glimpse of their yếm underneath.
The modern dress
In 1930, Hanoi artist Cát Tường, also known as Le Mur, designed a dress inspired by the ngũ thân and by Paris fashions. It reached to the floor and fit the curves of the body by using darts and a nipped-in waist. When fabric became inexpensive, the rationale multiple layers and thick flaps disappeared. Modern texile manufacture allowed for wider panels, eliminating the need to sew narrow panels together. The áo dài Le Mur, or "trendy" aodai, created a sensation when model Nguyễn Thị Hậu wore it for a feature published by the newspaper Today in January 1935. The style was promoted by the artists of Tự Lực văn đoàn ("Self-Reliant Literary Group") as a national costume for the modern era. The painter Lê Phô introduced several popular styles of aodai beginning in 1934. Such Westernized garments temporarily disappeared during World War II (1939-45).
In the 1950s, Saigon designers tightened the fit of the aodai to create the version commonly seen today. Trần Kim of Thiết Lập Tailors and Dũng of Dũng Tailors created a dress with raglan sleeves and a diagonal seam that runs from the collar to the underarm. The infamous Madame Nhu, first lady of South Vietnam, popularized a collarless version beginning in 1958. The aodai was most popular from 1960 to 1975. A brightly colored áo dài hippy was introduced in 1968. The áo dài mini, a version designed for practical use and convenience, had slits that extended above the waist and panels that reached only to the knee.
The aodai has always been more common in the South than in the North. The communists, who gained power in the North in 1954 and in the South in the 1975, had conflicted feelings about the aodai. They praised it as a national costume and one was worn to the Paris Peace Conference (1968-73) by Vietcong negotiator Nguyễn Thị Bình. Yet Westernized versions of the dress and those associated with "decadent" Saigon of the 1960s and early 1970s were condemned. Economic crisis, famine, and war with Cambodia combined to make the 1980s a fashion low point. The aodai was rarely worn except at weddings and other formal occasions, with the older, looser-fitting style preferred.
| | Overseas Vietnamese, meanwhile, kept tradition alive with "Miss Aodai" pageants (Hoa Hậu Áo Dài), the most notable one held annually in Long Beach, California. |
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