Vietnamese clothing (Vietnamese: Trang phục Việt Nam) also known as Việt phục (chữ Hán: 越服), various styles of clothing traditionally and historically worn in Vietnam. The most popular style of traditional Vietnamese clothing is , a 20th century modernization of áo ngũ thân designed primarily for women.
Historically, Vietnamese clothing was heavily influenced by Chinese aesthetic in both folk fashion and formal court dress traditions. Over time, elements from Cham, and later Western fashion introduced through France were also incorporated.
History The clothing and textile history of Vietnam reflects the culture and tradition that has been developed since the ancient Bronze Age wherein people of diverse cultures were living in Vietnam, the long influence of the Chinese and their associated cultural influence, as well as the short-lived French colonial rule. The dynamic cultural exchanges which took place with those foreign cultural influences had a significant impact on the history of clothing in Vietnam; this has eventually lead to the birth to a distinctive Vietnamese clothing style, áo dài is only one of such clothing for example. Moreover, as Vietnam has multiple ethnicities, there are many distinctive styles of clothing which reflect their wearer's ethnicity.
Since the ancient times, textiles used and produced in Vietnam have been silk in Northern Vietnam, barkcloth, and banana fiber cloth; kapok and hemp were also generally used prior to the introduction of cotton.
For at least a thousand years, Vietnam was ruled by the Chinese in the north while the south of Vietnam was ruled by the Indian-culture influenced, independent kingdom of Champa. During this period, the clothing styles which were developed in Vietnam contained both indigenous and imported foreign elements; the upper classes tended to be more easily influenced by those foreign influences than the common people. The upper classes of Vietnam in Northern Vietnam tended to wear clothing which mirrored and was influenced by the fashions of the Chinese, and this style of clothing persisted even after the end of the Chinese rule in the independent kingdom of Đại Việt and in Champa.
For centuries, peasant women typically wore a halter top (yếm) underneath a blouse or overcoat, alongside a skirt (váy or quần không đáy). It was until the 1920s in Vietnam's north area in isolated hamlets where skirts were worn. Before the Nguyễn dynasty, the cross-collared robe (áo tràng vạt) was worn popularly.
Bách Việt period (1000 BC - 1 BC) Most of ancient northern Vietnam was referred as the Lạc Việt which was considered to be part of the Baiyue region in ancient Chinese texts. Prior to the Chinese conquest, the Tai nobles first came in Northern Vietnam during the Đông Sơn era, and they started to assimilate the local Mon-Khmer and Kra-dai people in a processed referred as Tai-ization or Tai-ification as the Tai people were politically and culturally dominant in Baiyue; this led to the adoption of the Tai people's clothing and the formation of dress style influenced by the Tai people.
The Han Chinese referred to the various non-Han "barbarian" peoples of North Vietnam and Southern China as "Yue" (Việt) or Baiyue, saying they possessed common habits like adapting to water, having their hair cropped short and having tattoos.
Nanyue Nanyue (204 BC–111 BC) was an independent state which was founded by a Chinese general. However, in the Kingdom of Nanyue, it was the elite who were primarily influenced by Chinese clothing as the presence of the Chinese was limited. The clothing of the elites of Nanyue was mixed of Tai and Chinese clothing styles. The clothing of the Elites include Chinese fashion from the Warring States period and the Qin dynasty; the style of clothing was mainly a V-shaped collar gown which was tight fitting that was folded to the right. The clothing was multi-layered; it was common to wear three layers of clothing and tended to have narrow and straight sleeves. The elites women on the other-hand tended to wear a blouse and a skirt.
Chinese Conquest Period of Vietnam The Kingdom of Nanyue (204 BC–111 BC) was conquered and ruled by the Han Chinese under the Han dynasty in 111 BC. The Chinese ruled over Northern Vietnam for 1000 years until c. 900 AD. This time, it was the Chinese which lead to acculturation process referred as Sinicization. The clothing of officials in Northern Vietnam followed the regulations of the Chinese dress. However, even during the Han dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD), there was still very little Chinese migration into Northern Vietnam. It was in the subsequent centuries after the fall of the Han dynasty that there was a large influx of Chinese in the region of Annan.
From 43 AD to 939 AD, the direct rule of the Chinese in Northern Vietnam led to the Chinese clothing influence on the local clothing styles, especially the local elites; this also included the leaders who rebelled against the rule of the Chinese who typically wore Chinese-style clothing. The Elites wore clothing made of silk which were colourful and decorated while commoners wore plain hemp-based clothing. According to the Book of the Later Han by Fan Ye, the civilization of Lingnan started with Ren Yan and Xi Guang (both Han Officials in Jiaozhi and Jiuzhen respectively) who were credited for introducing hats and sandals to the people of Lingnan along with many other aspects, such as agriculture.
Non-Chinese immigrants were attracted to the Tang dynasty-ruled Annan, and non-Chinese migrants started settling in the neighbouring areas; the blending of Chinese culture, Mon-Khmer, and Tai-Kradai in northern Vietnam led to the development of the national majority, the Vietnamese people. The elites followed the Chinese clothing system more closely once the regions had been incorporated into the Chinese imperial system. During the thousand years of imperial domination, the Vietnamese adopted Chinese clothing, but local customs and styles were never lost and became incorporated with Vietnamese society.
Lý dynasty to Trần dynasty (1009–1400) After Northern Vietnam became independent from China, the Vietnamese elites both followed the Chinese fashions and created distinctive, but still heavily Chinese-influenced local Vietnamese styles. The Chinese style dress gradually spread to Vietnamese commoners and among the people who were living in the surrounding regions which was being formally ruled by the Vietnamese; however, the form of the commoner clothing were distinct from those worn by the elite class. Almost all male commoners of the Việt ethnic and ethnic minorities started to wear Chinese style trousers and shirts.
Vietnamese wore a round neck costume, which was made from 4 parts of cloth called áo tứ điên. Both men and women wore it. There are also other types such as: áo tràng vạt (long-flap robe). The garments "áo" (áo is for the upper part of body) are below knee length, and round neck garments have buttons when the long-flap robe is tied to the right.
Short hair or a shaven head was popular in Vietnam since the ancient period. Vietnamese men had shaven head or short hair during Trần dynasty. This can be seen in the painting "The Mahasattva Trúc Lâm Coming Out of the Mountains" which portrayed Emperor Trần Nhân Tông and his men during the Trần dynasty as well as the Chinese encyclopedia "Sancai Tuhui" from the 17th century. The convention was popular until the Fourth Chinese domination of Vietnam.
Hồ dynasty (1400–1407) In the 1400s, Emperor Lê Quý Ly wrote a poem to describe his country and his government to the Ming dynasty envoys, explaining shared cultural status between Đại Ngu and Ming by referring to the Han and Tang dynasties during a time when Đại Việt was a part of China, "You inquire about the state of affairs in Annan. Annan’s customs are simple and pure. Moreover, official clothing is according to the Tang system. The rites and music that control intercourse between the ruler and the officials are those of the Han [...]".
Fourth Chinese domination of Vietnam (1407–1427)
When the Han Chinese ruled the Vietnamese in the Fourth Chinese domination of Vietnam, due to the Ming dynasty's conquest during the Ming–Hồ War they imposed the Han Chinese style of men wearing long hair on short-haired Vietnamese men. The Vietnamese were ordered to stop cutting their hair and instead to grow their hair long and switch to Han Chinese clothing within a month by a Ming official. Ming administrators said their mission was to civilize the unorthodox Vietnamese barbarians. Women had to wear Chinese style clothing. The Ming dynasty only wanted the Vietnamese to wear long hair and to stop teeth blackening so they could have white teeth and long hair like Chinese.
Later Lê dynasty (1428–1789) In 1435, Nguyễn Trãi, a scholar official, and his colleagues compiled the Geography (Dư địa chí) based on the lessons he had taught to the prince, who then became Emperor Lê Thái Tông; his teachings also included how Vietnamese were different from their neighbours in terms of language and clothing customs: "The people of our land should not adopt the languages or the clothing of the lands of the Wu [Ming], Champa, the Lao, Siam, or Zhenla [Cambodia], since doing so will bring chaos to the customs of our land". They viewed the Ming as having been affected by Mongolian customs in terms of clothing customs (e.g. with their hair hanging down the back, white teeth, short clothing, long sleeves, and bright and lustrous robes and caps) despite returning to the ways of Han and Tang and the people of Lao as wearing Indian-style clothing like the robes of Buddhist monks "like the irrigated fields of dysfunctional families". Therefore, they considered that all those styles, including those of Champa and Khmer, should not be worn as they disregarded the customs of the Vietnamese, who continued to follow the rites of Zhou and Song dynasties: in the Dư địa chí, it is written that according to the scholar Lý Tử Tấn, during the reign of Trần Dụ Tông, Emperor Taizu of Ming bestowed a poem saying, "An Nan [Đại Việt] has the Trần clan, and its customs are not those of the Yuan [Mongols]. Its clothing and caps are in the classic pattern of the Zhou dynasty. Its rites and music follow the relationship between ruler and minister, as in the Song dynasty” and therefore Emperor Taizu promoted the ambassador of Đại Việt (Đoàn Thuận Thân) by 3 ranks to be equal that of Joseon.
The Lê dynasty encouraged the civilians to return to traditional customs: teeth blackening as well as short hair or shaved heads. A royal edict was issued by Vietnam in 1474 forbidding Vietnamese from adopting foreign languages, hairstyles and clothes like that of the Lao, Champa or the "Northerners" which referred to the Ming. The edict was recorded in the 1479 Complete Chronicle of Đại Việt of Ngô Sĩ Liên.A section in the book, Lịch triều hiến chương loại chí (歷朝憲章類誌), states the clothing of the emperor during the Initial Lê dynasty:
Revival Lê dynasty
The dragon robe (áo Long Bào) was worn in Vietnam since the Restored Late-Lê period, Phan Huy Chú wrote in the Categorized Records of the Institutions of Successive Dynasties (Lịch triều hiến chương loại chí):
Through many portraits and images of rulers during the Ming, Joseon, and more recently, during the Nguyễn dynasty, one could see that this standard (the wearing of Long Bào) existed for a long period of time within a very large region.
Đàng Trong and Đàng Ngoài