A must visit in Vietnam - the Áo Dài Museum!

The Áo Dài Museum on the outskrts of Ho Chi Minh City
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Location and history
Ao Dai Museum is built in Long Phuoc Ward, District 9, Ho Chi Minh City, only 30 minutes going by motorbike from the city center. The museum campus is located in a space of 20,000 m2. The scenery surrounding the museum building is very beautiful. Coming here, visitors feel like that they are in Mekong Delta, which is surrounded by water coconut trees, canals, bamboo bridges, rice fields, lotus ponds and rivers.

The museum belongs to a famous Vietnamese designer named Sy Hoang. It was established with the aim of helping both domestic and foreign tourists to learn about the Vietnamese traditional dress culture. After spending 12 years nurturing a desire for building an ao dai museum, his dream does come true.

Architecture and display artifacts
The museum was designed in a longhouse-style with wooden frame and yin and yang tile roofs. The wood was brought back from Central Vietnam and the house was built by Kim Bong craftsmen. On the right (following the entrance), the Vietnamese traditional dresses are displayed in each period, from ancient time to modern times. These dresses were owned by kings, royal members, artists and famous actors, etc. In addition, the stories surrounding these dresses and their owners are also emphasized.

On the left is the display of the dresses associated with Vietnamese women, who had made great contributions in the political and social fields in the 20th century. Among these figures are Women General Nguyen Thi Dinh, Nguyen Thi Binh Diplomatist, Ton Nu Thi Ninh diplomatist, Bach Tuyet artist, Tra Giang film actress, Professor – Doctor Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong, Minh Hanh designer. In the present, the museum stores over 1,000 the Vietnamese traditional dresses and over 3,000 photos of women.

Coming to Ao Dai Museum, besides enjoying the charming water river view, admiring the ao dai from time to time, visitors can also experience the stages of designing, drawing, embroidering and choose the beautiful dresses to try on.

Áo Dài
The áo dài is a modernized Vietnamese national garment. Besides suits and dresses nowadays, men and women can also wear áo dài on formal occasions. It is a long, split tunic worn over silk trousers. Áo translates as shirt and dài means "long". The term can be used to describe any clothing attire that consists of a long tunic, such as nhật bình.

The predecessor of the áo dài was derived by the Nguyễn lords in Phú Xuân during 18th century. This outfit was derived from the áo ngũ thân, a five-piece dress commonly worn in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The áo dài was later made to be form-fitting which was influenced by the French, Nguyễn Cát Tường and other Hanoi artists redesigned the áo dài as a modern dress in the 1920s and 1930s. The updated look was promoted by the artists and magazines of Tự Lực văn đoàn (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. The áo dài dress for women was extremely popular in South Vietnam in the 1960s and early 1970s. On Tết and other occasions, Vietnamese men may wear an áo gấm (brocade robe), a version of the áo dài made of very thick fabric and with sewed symbols.

The áo dài dress has traditionally been marketed with a feminine appeal, with "Miss Ao Dai" pageants being popular in Vietnam and with overseas Vietnamese. However, the men version of áo dài or modifiedáo dài are also worn during weddings or formal occasions. The áo dài is one of the few Vietnamese words that appear in English-language dictionaries. The áo dài can be paired with the nón lá or the khăn vấn.