Ha Noi to put on birthday suit (1)

HCM CITY — Designer Vo Viet Chung is getting ready to make a once in a century achievement – a 1,000m long ao dai (traditional long dress) to celebrate the 1,000th birthday of Ha Noi-Thang Long in 2010.

There are going to be a lot of pin-pricked fingers and strained eyes but Chung is determined to get the dress finished by June this year. He expects the ao dai will win a place in the Viet Nam Guinness Book of Records.

Chung says he’s spent around VND1 billion (around US$63,000) on the dress so far.
But don’t be fooled by the imminent deadline, because Chung’s project has been taken some painstaking planning.

"The dress is a piece of embroidery art," he says. "I spent a lot of time researching embroidery techniques but the dress also employs the style of old water colour paintings."

The train of the dress has nine layers, each embroidered with a flying dragon. These symbolise the nine branches of the Mekong River. "I also included the dim silhouette of our famous queen in the south, Nam Phuong," he says.

The dress will use traditional colours from the Nguyen dynasty like red, blue, indigo and purple and the material is also symbolic. "I’m using materials from the three areas of the country; from the north I’ve chosen Van Phuc (Ha Dong) silk; the south, Tan Chau and My A silk; from the centre Da Nang and Lam Dong silk. These will be blended with Phuoc Thinh silk, the total will make up around 1,000m of material," he says.