Ao dai is also full of... hardships
Ao Dai is increasingly affirming its position as a costume for women, created by Vietnamese people, a symbol of Vietnamese cultural identity, expressing the soul and beauty of Vietnamese women, bringing many special emotions not only to Vietnamese people but also to foreigners. However, for a long time, raising the level of Ao Dai to become a cultural heritage has encountered many difficulties.
6 years ago, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Vietnam Women's Union organized a national scientific conference with the theme "Vietnamese Ao Dai: Identifying, Customs, Values and Identity". This is considered an important activity to prepare to include Ao Dai in the National List of Intangible Cultural Heritage, towards preparing a dossier to submit to UNESCO.
Right at this conference, delegates agreed that "recognizing Ao Dai as a national intangible cultural heritage is an important step, a foundation for building Ao Dai dossiers to submit to UNESCO according to the 2003 Convention". One of the reasons is that there has been an incident where foreign designers copied the design of Vietnamese Ao Dai.
However, the investment in building a dossier to make Vietnamese ao dai a national intangible cultural heritage, and moving towards preparing a dossier to submit to UNESCO, has not made much progress. Until 2024, after many efforts by Hue, only folk knowledge "Hue Ao Dai Sewing and Wearing Knowledge" of Hue city, Thua Thien Hue province was included in the List of National Intangible Cultural Heritage.
In an interview with Lao Dong Newspaper, Dr. Phan Thanh Hai, when he was Director of the Department of Culture and Sports of Hue City, affirmed that the tailoring profession and the custom of using Hue Ao Dai are very worthy of being recognized as a representative intangible cultural heritage of humanity. "The tailoring profession and the custom of using Hue Ao Dai are heritages with profound humanistic values, associated with the spiritual life and customs and habits of the people of Hue, respected by the community and continuously passed down through many generations to this day. If the heritage of the tailoring profession and the custom of using Hue Ao Dai are recognized by UNESCO, it will create many favorable conditions to continue to identify, research, document, and build measures to protect heritage in the community," Mr. Hai said.
The issue is that the ao dai heritage is not only confined to the Hue ao dai space but needs to be strong enough to spread and carry national identity in the dossier submitted to UNESCO. In June 2025, the Ministry of Home Affairs issued a decision on allowing the establishment of the Vietnam Ao Dai Culture Association. One of the associations' tasks is to advise, advise, and propose to state management agencies in developing policies to support, honor and preserve the cultural values of the national ao dai, especially in education, communication, cultural diplomacy and creative economic development.
Opportunity for Vietnamese Ao Dai
The birth of the Vietnam Ao Dai Culture Association is a major step forward, creating a more solid basis for Vietnam to consolidate its dossier to submit to UNESCO.
On July 25, 2026, at the National Assembly House, Member of the Party Central Committee, Vice Chairwoman of the National Assembly Nguyen Thi Thanh met with the Vietnam Ao Dai Culture Association. At the meeting, the Vice Chairwoman of the National Assembly expressed her belief that, with the enthusiasm, responsibility and consensus of the Executive Committee and all members, the proposals will be gradually realized, contributing to making the cultural values of Ao Dai recognized deservedly, and at the same time bringing the image of Vietnam closer to international friends.
Just one day later, on July 26, Secretary of the Party Central Committee, Deputy Prime Minister Pham Thi Thanh Tra also had a meeting with 20 typical delegates of the Vietnam Ao Dai Culture Association. The Deputy Prime Minister emphasized that each member should always carry the ao dai and pride in Vietnamese women to spread national cultural values to international friends, contributing to bringing the image of Vietnam closer to friends from five continents.
In particular, the Deputy Prime Minister requested the Vietnam Ao Dai Culture Association to continue to closely coordinate with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and relevant agencies to accelerate the progress of completing the dossier for Vietnamese Ao Dai to become a cultural heritage recognized by UNESCO, and affirmed that he will accompany and support to realize this goal in the coming time.
Opportunities are coming very close to Vietnamese ao dai. This is also part of the Foreign Culture Strategy to 2030, with a vision to 2045 newly issued by the Government. The goal for the 2026-2030 period sets out the requirement to have at least 5 heritages recognized by international organizations, especially UNESCO.
A great responsibility is being placed on the shoulders of those who preserve and spread the value of Vietnamese Ao Dai.
