Page 273 - Trang Phục Việt Nam

necklaces were often worn which were wound several times around the neck, or hung down at
the chest. They also favored armpit necklaces which had a gold coin in the middle.

The women in Quảng Trị, Thừa Thiên, Huế wore gold kiềng, a kind of necklace that is hard,
cylindrical and one centimeter thick, plain or carved. They also wore wristlets.
Due to the policy of the colonial French, a tide of Western influences swept into Vietnam,
radically influencing the tastes of the bourgeois class, middle class and the youngsters who
preferred new movements such as “New Life”, “Cheering up”, “Youthfulness” and so on.
In early 1930s, fashionable attire for women in Hanoi and Saigon was long dresses of new
design. The traditional five-panel dress was developed with tighter bodice. The front body and
the rear body of the dress were of one piece of cloth instead of two pieces. The gown length
was shortened. The modern long dress was made of different fabrics and colors. In line with
these changes, the painter Cát Tường studied and introduced a new style of long dress called
Le Mur (in French, meaning wall; the painter’s name, Tường, means wall in English). The
dress had puff sleeves with stiff cuff, lotus sleeves or elastic sleeves. The round neck could be
slit down to the chest and bordered with laces. It could also be in the shape of a lotus leaf. The
wavy hem was attached with a narrow strip of colored cloth or laces. Many features of the Le
Mur dress were borrowed from contemporary dresses of Western women.
Apart from Cát Tường, the painter Lê Phổ also made a contribution to the evolvement of the
traditional long dress and a new style of long dress named after him was produced. The Lê
Phổ dress adopted small changes. For instance, the bodice was tighter and the wavy dress
panels were longer and did not expose the waist at the side.

Fashionable women at that time had their hair permed, wore high heeled shoes and white
pants. They were often dressed in long dresses when they received guests, went out, went to
work, went to school or festivals. Long dresses for summer were made of lightweight fabrics
in bright colors and with small flowery designs. In winter, they wore velvet, wool or felt long
dresses or they could wear two long dresses to keep warm. Elderly women wore padded-
cotton long dresses made from two layers; the outer layer was made of velvet, satin or flowery
brocade. They could also wear a short padded-cotton shirt outside the normal long dress. The
short padded-cotton shirt had no buttons and it was fastened with a narrow waistband. They
could also wear woolen shirts under or over long dresses in winter. The woolen shirt was
sleeveless or had long sleeves; its length reached the waist; its hem was adjustable; the neck
was V shaped; it had buttons down from the chest; the collar had one or two buttons. They
could wear jackets with stiff collars, back panels cut on the bias and wavy hems. They
wrapped woolen shawls, embroidered silk scarves, flowery scarves or crocheted scarves
around the shoulders.
The women folded their long hair into a long piece of black cloth and wound it around the
head. They wore red lipstick and put pink powder on their cheeks. Fashionable women had
their eyebrows plucked and they wore eyeliner to make the eyebrows look long, sharp and
attractively arched.
Northern women of the middle class in the cities, or those in the suburbs typically wore áo
cánh in white or brown, with close or open panels and with a round neck, heart-shaped neck,
square neck or spoon-shaped neck. The light brown four-panel long dress had two panels