Miss Ngoc Trang (birth name Nguyen Thi Dien) is the founder of the Ngoc Trang Ao Dai brand – a brand that has been present in the fashion industry for more than 20 years, marking positive contributions to honoring the beauty of Vietnamese Ao Dai, especially in building a luxurious and noble image for middle-aged women.
After certain successes in the business field, Ngoc Trang decided to try her hand at the international beauty pageant Mrs Globe and was loved by the audience. The final night of the 27th Mrs Globe contest in 2024 took place on Hainan Island, China, with the competition of 54 contestants from countries and territories around the world. Designer Ngoc Trang, representing Vietnam, won the Miss Asia award and the Best National Costume award. The national costume that won first prize was inspired by Bat Trang pottery village.
Vietnamese Ao Dai is one of the typical costumes, associated with the production and cultural life of Vietnamese people through many generations. Miss Ngoc Trang and her staff always try to spread the love of Ao Dai with standard designs, all products are meticulously completed, careful in every detail. Miss Ngoc Trang not only sends her passion for Ao Dai, she also brings the story of the national costume to become a source of inspiration and contributes to the preservation, maintenance and promotion of traditional silk weaving villages of Vietnam. Over the years, Ngoc Trang has spent a lot of time researching, exploring and creating high-tech dyeing techniques and hand-painting on silk. Trang started researching from the beginning and wanted to make the silk painting technique both modern but still showing sophistication, bringing higher artistic value to the Ao Dai. In particular, Trang also applies advanced techniques to the traditional Ao Dai so that the Ao Dai is now closer to world fashion as well as helping to raise the value of Vietnamese silk.
VIETNAMESE AO DAI IS ONE OF THE TYPICAL COSTUMES, ASSOCIATED WITH THE PRODUCTION AND CULTURAL LIFE OF VIETNAMESE PEOPLE THROUGH MANY GENERATIONS.
Miss Ngoc Trang shared: “Silk painting is an extremely unique and complex craft of the Vietnamese people, but it is increasingly fading away. Ao Dai is a traditional costume, typical of the nation, but has not received investment in design and material processing. Therefore, Trang and her colleagues began to revive the craft of painting on Vietnamese silk, and chose Ao Dai as a “fulcrum” from there. From are increasingly loved by consumers, especially young people. And fashion lovers can see that the theme throughout Trang’s works is nature, country, people, symbols of the land and regions that Trang has traveled through. All materials made from fabric, paint, stone beads, crystal beads, and beads are carefully selected by Trang and her team for their products. Perhaps because of the kindness and precision in each stage, the products launched on the market of the Ngoc Trang brand always bring a sense of familiarity, closeness and become attractive to international tourists.
Sharing about her desire to develop the Ngoc Trang high-end ao dai and evening gown brand in the future, she excitedly said: My ao dai are distilled from the quintessence of design, researched over many years to best suit the figure of Vietnamese women and the interesting thing is that today’s ao dai still retains the basic folds of the ancient ao dai, the tailoring is not much different, only the wearer requires more motifs, patterns and the way to sew a zipper on the back or on the side of the shirt instead of the traditional button row. The front and back panels do not have to be identical as before, the front panel can also have one or two additional panels sewn inside to add more grace to the dress.
The Ao Dai is closely associated with Vietnamese tradition but has not really spread to the majority of Vietnamese people, especially Vietnamese people living abroad. Therefore, the “responsibility” of Ao Dai designers like Trang is to spread the love of Ao Dai to the majority of people, thereby helping the Vietnamese public in particular and the world public in general to recognize the Ao Dai as a Vietnamese costume and not to confuse it with any other country.
By: HUYNH ANH