Page 279 - Trang Phục Việt Nam

dress worn over a sleeveless undershirt was very popular. The dress had a low-scooped
neckline and was attached to black satin pants.

Tran Le Xuan produced a type of long dress with a horizontal neckline. However, it was not
very popular. The wearers preferred round, square or pointed necklines. The sleeves were
shorter, the panels of the lower part were wider and longer and the bodice fitted more closely
around the waist.
In later years, influenced by the fashion of miniskirts, the design of long dress was changed
with narrow and knee-length panels, high collars, diagonal seams between shoulders, short
sleeves and wide sleeve-ends. A slit exposed a small part of the rib above the upper hem of
the trousers. The long dress was made of domestic or expensive imported fabrics in white,
deep red, Huế violet or bight colors. The top was embroidered with designs of flowers,
dragons or phoenixes. The top could be a colorful cloth with small or big designs of flowers or
geometric shapes. The fashion of Western dresses and skirts also developed at the same
time.

Since 1954, many women have had their hair permed instead of wearing it in a bun. Young
women’s hair came in many fashions: short hair, curly hair, curly fringes, wavy hair or frizzy
hair. After a few years, they turned back to parting their hair in the middle and let it naturally fall
down to the shoulders or extend to the middle of the back. Some of them still had their hair
permed with frizzy or rumpled wisps of hair.

Women also got the choice of many new types of footwear. During the period 1954 - 1959,
only rich women could afford leather shoes with soft soles, pointed toes and high heels. A few
years later, they wore shoes with curved toes and low square heels. When dressed in long
dresses, they usually wore high-heeled wooden shoes lacquered or painted with flowers,
some very high, even over 10 centimeters in length.
Popular jewelry included colorful plastic bracelets, rings with large semi-precious stones of
many colors, big ear-rings, bronze necklaces and necklaces of large beads.

Fashionable glasses had plastic frames and big round, rectangular, square or multi-
angular frames. The eye-glasses came in a variety of colors: blue, light violet and dusky pink.

Just like the evolution of dress styles, fashion in cosmetics also changed over the time.
Women used much more make-up than they had before and liked to appear with red lips, and
pink cheeks. They wore thick eyeliner with shades of green, brown or violet. Some people
even put on several shades of color above their false eyelashes. They had their eyebrows
plucked into thin lines and had them penciled. They varnished their fingernails and toe-nails
with pink, red, brown, violet, green or silver nail polish.

Women’s costumes since 1975

Since the reunification of North and South Vietnam, there have been fewer variations in
women’s garments across the country. The senior women in cities wear áo cánh, áo bà ba,
and Hong Kong shirts and seamed shirts with heart-shaped, spoon-shaped and square
collars, V-shaped and swallow wing collars, even double lapel collars for everyday wear. The
front of the top garment can be embroidered with a design of a few flowers or even the fingers