At the opening ceremony, the HCMC People’s Committee presented certificates of merit to outstanding individuals who made significant contributions to the city’s Ao Dai Festival over ten years, and awarded a certificate of Vietnamese Record to recognize the festival as “HCMC Ao Dai Festival - The festival honoring and promoting Vietnamese Ao Dai that is held annually for ten consecutive years (2014-2024)).
Speaking at the ceremony, Vice Chairman of the HCMC People's Committee Nguyen Van Dung said that this year’s festival is larger than previous years and features a series of diverse activities. Launched as a tourism event, HCMC’s Ao Dai Festival has become an annual program in March at President Ho Chi Minh Statue Park in front of the city People's Committee building and Nguyen Hue Walking Street.
HCMC Ao Dai Festival 2024 received a response from hundreds of Ao Dai tailoring establishments, artisans, designers, artists, especially domestic and foreign tourists, contributing to promoting Ao Dai to become a popular costume of different groups of people, reflecting the love for Vietnamese traditional dress, preserving and promoting Vietnamese traditional dress as well as spreading pride and love for Ao Dai.
The 2024 HCMC Ao Dai Festival marks 10 years of its development. The event has become an annual unique cultural tourism product spreading the love for Vietnamese traditional dress to local people and foreign visitors. Ao Dai Festival and other festive events of the city are expected to contribute to promoting images of Vietnam and HCMC to the world, presenting national culture and identities of the southern metropolis, he emphasized.
The festival will include a series of cultural activities, such as art programs; a fashion show of Ao Dai displaying more than 800 designs of 30 fashion designers nationwide performed by 22 artists, beauty queens, and ambassadors of the festival; a program to offer free Ao Dai to disadvantaged workers on the occasion of International Women's Day (March 8).
There is also a special performance of Ao Dai with the participation of the female consuls general and consul general's wives in the city, contributing to tightening friendly cooperation between countries and spreading the beauty of Ao Dai to international friends.
