Vietnam: Young woman in an ao dai dress descending from a covered pony cart, Saigon,1950s

Vietnam: Young woman in an ao dai dress descending from a covered pony cart, Saigon,1950s

The ao dai (Vietnamese: áo dài) is a Vietnamese national costume, now most commonly for women. In its current form, it is a tight-fitting silk tunic worn over pantaloons. The word is pronounced ow-zye in the north and ow-yai in the south, and translates as 'long dress'. The name áo dài was originally applied to the dress worn at the court of the Nguy?n Lords at Hu? in the 18th century. This outfit evolved into the áo ngu thân, a five-paneled aristocratic gown worn in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Inspired by Paris fashions, Nguy?n Cát Tu?ng and other artists associated with Hanoi University redesigned the ngu thân as a modern dress in the 1920s and 1930s. The updated look was promoted by the artists and magazines of T? L?c van doàn (Self-Reliant Literary Group) as a national costume for the modern era. In the 1950s, Saigon designers tightened the fit to produce the version worn by Vietnamese women today. The dress was extremely popular in South Vietnam in the 1960s and early 1970s, frowned upon as frivolous and borgeois in the North between 1952 and 1986, but is today increasingly popular nationwide, having become once again a symbol of Vietnamese nationalism and Vietnamese female beauty.

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3356 x 5136 px | 49.3 MB

28.4 x 43.5 cm | 11.2 x 17.1 in (300 dpi)