Minina Julia

From the History of Traditional Vietnamese Clothing of the 1930s–1940s: The Female Costume as a Reflection of Societal Modernisation

ЮГО-ВОСТОЧНАЯ АЗИЯ: АКТУАЛЬНЫЕ ПРОБЛЕМЫ РАЗВИТИЯ, 2025, №3(68), 307-321

 
Annotation: Changes in vestimentary culture reflect the most significant historical, social, and economic processes in a society’s life. A turning point in the Vietnamese clothing culture in the Modern era was marked by the oeuvre of renowned fashion designer and artist Nguyen Cat Tuong, who, while experimenting with traditional clothing styles, created a fundamentally new costume: the modernised women’s ao dai. Nguyen Cat Tuong, in his articles and drawings regularly published in the newspaper Phong Hóa (‘Social Mores’) (1932–1936) and the magazine Ngày Nay (‘Today’) (1935-1940), as well as in his social and entrepreneurial activities, outlined the ways to solve the so-called ‘women’s issue’ and modernise Vietnamese society as a whole. Despite Ho Chi Minh’s criticism of the new Vietnamese costume from an economic and aesthetic perspective, the ao dai has continued to develop and is widely used today.

Keywords: Vietnam, history of costume, history of Vietnamese society, Vietnamese costume, ao dai costume