Wednesday

On Sunday night, Miss Vietnam ranked among the ten finalists of Miss Universe's National Costume Contest in a beautiful, but possibly rather haute, version¹ of Vietnam's traditional garment, the áo dài (pronounced ow-yie in the south, and ow-zie in the north, the last syllable rhymes with "pie"). Not to be outdone, each of the other seventy-nine contestants wore one themselves Tuesday night at a charity pageant for Thanh Nien Newspaper.² The áo dài is a surprisingly malleable pattern for something so traditional. Here you can see what I think of as the standard garment, a long tunic and pants seen frequently on the street and professional settings. Here you can see just how varied they can become. While I can wax curmudgeonly about how wide the theory of áo dài seems to range ("if they change everything about the traditional pattern--the V-shaped closure, the waist-high slit, the floor length, the mandarin collar--why is it still considered the same thing?"), Sunshine points out that these words literally mean "long garment" and so, in that respect, "áo dài" can be as inclusive as the word "dress". Four designers dressed twenty contestants each for the show Tuesday, in outfits ranging from sequined prom night mistakes to shockingly cool Erté deco designs.³ Between sets, gala entertainment seemed calibrated for rather international sensibilities, eschewing traditional eastern folk sounds for whatever is the Việt version of Cantopop and a nostalgic twenties theme.* I really enjoyed my first live Miss Universe event, by the way. Seeing everyone in person was revelatory: I'm a beauty queen naysayer at heart, but these women were far prettier live than they seem on TV. Onstage it was also easier to empathize with their vulnerabilities as a group of near-teenagers jammed thoroughly out of context in front of everyone. [Cavin]