Vietnamese Dress: Ao Dai (Áo Dài)
Áo Dài, the Vietnamese traditional dress
Ao Dai is a
traditional dress in Vietnam. It's also a symbol of Vietnam. Whenever you hear about Vietnam, definitely you will hear about Ao Dai (
Áo Dài in vietnamese). Ao dai nowadays is very popular with different designs and colors. Ao dai is written like this 襖長 in chữ Nôm - the old kind of writing of Vietnam.
History of Ao Dai (Áo Dài)
In fact, nobody knows the original history of Ao Dai (Áo Dài). There was no evidence which says about where and when the Ao Dai appeared. At the beginning, we don't know what was the real design of Ao Dai. Researchers show that the Ao Dai (Áo Dài) stared to be wore thousand years ago.
The
King Nguyễn Phúc Khoát was considered as a person who discovered and made the áo dài have its form. Until 16th century, Vietnam was still affected by Chinese culture including clothes. To keep Vietnamese's culture, Nguyễn Phúc Khoát said in one of his "law" about the design of Vietnamese's clothes which was similar to Ao Dai nowadays. Because of that reason, Nguyễn Phúc Khoái could be the one who started the history of Ao Dai (Áo Dài).
Vietnamese men and women wore Ao Dai until 1947 when Vietnam got the independence and the government had the campaign: diệt giặc đói, giặc dốt (fight against poverty and illiteracy). On Match 20, 1947, Ho Chi Minh (Hồ Chí Minh) wrote "Đời Sống Mới" (New Life) and told people should stop wearing Ao Dai because it took more material than normal clothes and it was not convenient for people to move, or to work. If we wore normal clothes, we had saved 200 million đồng/ year. Most people joined this campaign and Ao Dai wasn't wore in the North for a long time.
