Ao Dai Museum
About 30 minutes from the city center, the Ao Dai Museum is built on Long Phuoc Ward, at 206/19/30 Long Thuan Street, Long Phuoc Ward, District 9, Ho Chi Minh city.
Referring to the image of Vietnamese women, people immediately think of the Ao Dai – the traditional costume of our country. Since ancient times, Ao Dai has played an indispensable role for Vietnamese women when attending a certain event, or simply the dress chosen by the bride in the most important day of her life. Over hundreds of years of history, the design of the Ao Dai has been gradually changed. Therefore, right in the heart of District 9 of Ho Chi Minh City, a Ao Dai Museum has been erected with the purpose of being a place for the collection of costumes, beautiful stories about Ao Dai.
Museum of Ao Dai is the desire of artist – designer Sy Hoang to honor one of Vietnamese values; helping young people and tourists have a more detailed view of Vietnam’s national costume.
Officially opened on January 22, 2014, the Ao Dai Museum immediately attracted the attention of the public and the media. In fact, painter – designer Sy Hoang had built houses, designed garden and collected dresses during 12 years before.
Ao Dai Museum is an opened space of nearly 20,000 square meters of natural landscape, which imbued with the colors of pure meditation, bearing the imprint of traditional architecture typical of the Southwestern region of Vietnam, including many works such as lakes, ponds, gardens, display areas, experience areas and a big theater. The gallery is designed in a long house style with wooden frame and yin and yang roofs. Most of the main architecture of the museum is made of precious wood – the wood is collected from Quang Nam and is hand-made by artisans from Kim Bong carpentry village.
Museum of Ao Dai is a place to display artifacts, stories of Ao Dai from the time of formation and changes with social development, hundreds of years of history familiar with Vietnamese women. This is also the place to organize cultural and artistic events to display unique creations of Ao Dai.
Visitors will have the opportunity to learn the origin and development of the Ao Dai through each stage of history. On the right (according to the entrance) Ao Dai are displayed according to the chronological of development: the four-body Ao Dai in the 17th century (circa 1645), the five-body Ao Dai in the eighteenth century, and the Ao Dai of the Nguyen dynasty in nineteenth century…
On the left are Ao Dai associated with famous names in many fields of culture, politics and diplomacy such as: Hero of the Armed Forces Nguyen Thi Dinh, former Vice President Nguyen Thi Binh, diplomat Ton Nu Thi Ninh, People’s artist Bach Tuyet, film actress Tra Giang, Professor – Doctor Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong, designer Minh Hanh… In addition there are many costumes winning international award of designer Si Hoang himself, and more than 3000 images of Vietnamese women in traditional Ao Dai costumes.
The museum is also a place to display and preserve a series of specialized research materials, books, artifacts, movies, paintings, sculptures… from Ao Dai.
Inside the museum, there is also a private space for the children to create their own Ao Dai. Through this, they have the opportunity to understand more about traditional national culture.
Visitors to the museum not only admire the unique collection of Ao Dai, see the tailors show the process of creating a long dress from design, tailoring, drawing to completion, but also can choose beautiful dresses to try on and take photos or design, make drawings, and embroider a Ao Dai by themselves.
The Ao Dai Museum will be an interesting stop for those who are passionate about art in general or Ao Dai in particular. This place is not only a quiet museum with thousands of artifacts, but also a vivid and harmonious picture between nature and landscape, which is home to the unique cultural characteristics of Vietnam.