Ao Dai Festival to feature 3,000 performers

The annual Ao Dai Festival opening in Ho Chi Minh City today, launched by the city Department of Tourism, promotes traditional cultural values and the beauty and grace of the áo dài, a symbol of feminine beauty in Vietnam.

The city’s singers and dancers will dance and sing songs in praise of the country, women and ao dai in a music and fashion show called Ao Dai - Fashion Trends in 2018.

“Through our event, we hope to encourage people, both men and women, to love and wear áo dài not only during the Ao Dai Festival but also every day,” Tran Vinh Tuyen, deputy chairman of the city People’s Committee, said.

This year, the fifth year of the festival, the theme is I Love Ao Dai to honour and promote traditional cultural values and the beauty and grace of the áo dài, which has become the symbol of feminine beauty in Vietnam.

The 20-day event will open with a fashion show with 150 models showing off 13 collections of ao dai by famous designers such as Si Hoang, Thuy Nguyen and Adrian Anh Tuan on Nguyen Hue Street.

Around 1,000 ao dai will be displayed during the festival.

The event will feature 15 cultural and music programmes that are expected to attract several hundred cultural researchers, artists and performers.

A series of forums and seminars on ao dai will also be held.

Dozens of photo and picture exhibitions on women in ao dai will be held at universities, cultural centres, museums and libraries around the city, including the Museum of Southern Women and Ho Chi Minh City General Science Library.

Highlights will include a beauty contest, Charming Ao Dai, and a forum, Beauty of Ao Dai, aimed at attracting young women.

The organisers have invited women consuls, wives of foreign consuls and women staff of foreign consulates in the city to the festival.

More than 111 tailor shops, dozens of the garment and textile companies and several fashion houses have signed up.

Visitors will get free ao dai tailoring services offered by skilled designers and tailors, who will put up stalls on Nguyễn Huệ.

“We hope to make the festival one of the city’s famous tourist products,” Tuyen said.

Organised by the city Department of Tourism, the festival attracted more than 50,000 foreign and local visitors last year.