Taken from Lichsuvn.info

khiên này có trong sách Mỹ thuật việt Nam-TRANH CO VIET NAM (ANCIENT AND TRADITIONAL PAINTINGS OF VIETNAM), pages 68-69.
("Triumphal return of the military mandarin -- At the end of the 18th century (Doc Loi - Quynh - Nghe An)"
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/attachment.p...14105&stc=1
Notice how different we dressed before 19th century.

khiên hình thuỗn dài có hoa văn rồng thời Lý
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/attachment.p...14030&stc=1
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/attachment.p...14032&stc=1
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/attachment.p...14033&stc=1

ngoài ra còn có cái làm bằng mây, rất đẹp
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/attachment.p...14102&stc=1

có cả khiên tròn cũng cực tinh xảo, trưng bàyđấu giá bở nhà Southeby Newyork
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/attachment.p...14076&stc=1
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/attachment.p...14075&stc=1
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/attachment.p...14074&stc=1
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/attachment.p...14073&stc=1
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/attachment.p...14072&stc=1
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/attachment.p...14076&stc=1

Trang phục thời Lý Trần như thế nào?
Ly Tran dynasty clothing:



Japanese depictions of Vietnamese people from their book "Vạn quốc nhân vật đồ, năm 1645"

On the right - possibly the look of ancient Ao Tu Than.

This one's from another Japanese book " Thế giới nhân vật đồ quyển, năm 1714"


As we can see, clothing styles changed dramatically at the end of 18th century.

Ly Tran dynasty soldiers



Le-Trinh Dynasties

Nguyen Dynasty paintings:

Cờ Tướng từ lâu đã được các bậc tướng tá, quân vương rất chú trọng để rèn hiện tính cách, tài thao lược, kinh bang tế thế.



Tranh vẽ Bộ lễ triều đình nhà Nguyễn

Đang đợi có thằng não phẳng nhào vào nói: "Giống Nhật quá!!!" :-"

btw, ảnh rất đẹp, thanks 1 cái tiếc là hông có.

Is this Really Ly Tran Dynasty Clothing?

This is Van Xuan Clothing, i think:




I have some really interesting real colour pictures, can i post them here?

The one on the right is áo tứ thân

Yeah these two seems like the predecessor of the Ao Tu Than.
Especially that type of skirt which is very flowy and not puffy or thick like Hanbok or Kimono.

I'm wondering if that second painting is of Dong Kinh people of Hanoi or Tokyo people of Japan.
From the book title it seems the book is about people of nations around the world.

Portrait of Nguyen Trai


Portrait of Le Hoan (Le Dai Hanh)

Reconstructed clothings from research

Mạc Dynasty


Lê Dynasty


^I think the "lotus crown" won by Vietnamese queens are pretty uniquely Vietnamese as they are not seen in Chinese.








I always feel that customs for Viet men are often more similar to Chinese costumes whereas costumes for Viet women often preserve many unique features. Anyone know why this is?

Maybe, maybe not. After taking a close look at Ao Tu Than (especially old Ao Tu Than) and Chinese clothing like Tang style clothing
we might've gotten influenced from them.

I remember reading an article about a Chinese diplomat describing Vietnam during the Tran dynasties about
how grandiose our palaces were and how we still dressed in Tang dynasty styled clothing.

It seems we still dressed that way with slight adjustments to the clothing up until the late 19th century, just
in a more peasant version of the dress.

Tang Dynasty


Ao Tu Than:

So pics is allowed, i have some nice colour pics took by a French about our quan huyện, tri phủ in Nguyễn dynasty in early 19th, but i'm at school and using my phone now, when i'm home i'll post it, you'll be surprised for sure, spoiler: our tuần cảnh (police) - Nguyễn dynasty wear a very long trảm mã đao! And much much manlier than khai dinh sh!tdier in late 19th. Btw, I don't feel our costume look like Chinese costume especially Lê-Trịnh and Trịnh-Nguyễn, in that time our have a big black headdress just like in thumbup's first pic.

Same Ly Cong Uan drama series:

Look at the peasant girls on the right. Dressing still very Tang dynasty but with khan dong.

Very similar to this:




Of course it's not the same but influenced. Headdress is usually different.
Like Hanbok and Kimono were influenced by Chinese dress but I don't think they are the same as the Chinese.

Hurry home, I really want to see those pictures lol.

Of course we were influenced by the Chinese. What I meant to say was that Viet women costumes are at least "distinguishable" from those in China, but Viet men costumes are often hard to distinguish.

Btw, the áo tứ thân on the right in the 2nd picture is a modernized version used Miss International.

I reckon the old áo tứ thân should be more like these

Royal/noble




Peasant/Commoner version




Dancing girl version? (kinda like aspara - skin revealing)

Peasant áo tứ thân


People keep criticizing Lý Công Uẩn - Đường đến Thăng Long, but after looking at their costumes, I found that they're actually pretty history-accurate. What do you expect? All their customs were designed by the author of the popular documentary series "Đi Tìm Trang Phục Việt" as I heard. They just hate because of the director. People just get too emotional and don't think. Also thanks the oversea anti-communists for exaggerating and fueling the hatred, now the movie is banned. Happy?

Yeah it'd probably look something like this during the later years of the 18th century.
And like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Binl3ll-3CU @ 2:17
Before it probably look more similar to the Japanese paintings and those peasant girls in Ly Cong Uan.

I don't think they look like the first two cartoon drawings though. Like the paintings show, the neck
collar thing seems to be a new addition to Vietnamese attire. Possibly after the 19th century. Those
two drawings look more like Ao Dai with outer Ao Menh Phu.

It's more distinguishable because the headdress and hairstyles of Viet women were more different compared to
the men's headdress.

^ Yea I noticed the collar, but everything was accurate aside from that. You can tell that from comparison to the peasant áo tứ thân that still exist until today.

The dress from the clip you post is obviously ethnic Muong dress. Even her hat is from ethnic Muong. They were trying to be creative and combine ethnic Muong clothes with aodai.


As for the distinguishability of Viet women's clothings, it's not just the head dress. When I watch cải lương, I can always tell whether it's a Chinese story or a Viet story based on the dresses of women (even when they don't wear head dress), but not from dresses of men.

Agreed. They know nothing but they like to judge just because there's a "Chinese" director.

Ly Cong Uan is probably the most historically accurate with the ancient costumes but Vietnamese
people aren't used to seeing those types of costumes as Vietnamese. They don't know what Vietnamese
clothing looked before the 20th century and like to assume our clothing never changed.

I want to see that show so bad.
It's not banned, it's still in the process of approval.

It's just weird that Tran Thu Do didn't show yet either.

vietnamese people in an ancient chinese painting.

^ Thanks for the contribution.

I forgot to mention.

Ao Tu Than shows up @ 2.17 LOL. First one is ethnic Muong dress which is probably also from the same roots
as Ao Tu Than and evolved separately.

Nice!

Do you know the date of this painting?

1751-1757.《皇清职贡图》

I really hate it when people act irrationally. People complain about that drama being "too Chinese", but really do they even know what is "too Chinese" and what's not? I guess they just watch too much Chinese drama and they don't know what is Vietnamese anymore. We should make a TV series to show them distinction between "what is Chinese" and "what is Viet". Eg: Clothes of Vietnamese royalty prior to the Le dynasty often have red color instead yellow. Speaking of color of Vietnamese royalty, I just remember that in the series "Về Đất Thăng Long", they use yellow for the kings' clothes while in Đường Đến Thăng Long red is used for royal clothes, and OMG they protest DDTL as being "too Chinese" but not "Về Đất Thăng Long"? God, they even let the king wear manchu clothes (not aodai) in one of the scenes in Về Đất Thăng Long. DDTL seems much more historically accurate. People are just too ignorant.

This one is similar to that picture


Funny it's from the same dynasty.

Servant to the queen



Statue of princess of the Lê dynasty

Thanks. Paintings like this really help us get a clearer picture of Vietnam's past.

I don't know what happened to all Vietnamese paintings before the Nguyen Dynasty because they're nearly nonexistent.
Possibly burnt throughout all those wars.



Yeup definitely.
Most likely a result of watching too many foreign movies instead of focusing on improving our own.
Most Vietnamese, especially ones overseas know more about foreign history (Chinese, Korean etc) than our own because
of these dramas which is possibly why they criticized DDTTL. They don't know anything about their own culture besides
what happened in the past 200 years.

I just hate how there are some Viet Kieu who are utilizing this to criticize the government as Chinese sellouts etc. They're just
making the situation worse.

They actually bear similarity to áo ngũ thân in the 19th century. The major difference is that áo ngũ thân doesn't show the "inner shirt"


You can see the strongest similarity in the 3rd row, 3rd person from the left, walking in red.

The difference is the outer shirt/coat style.

It went from these:



To this:


Was it possible that we had gotten influence from Qing dynasty also?
It would explain the change in the outer shirt and the shirt collar and the similarity of Ao Dai to Qipao.

I like this thread. It is interesting to follow xigon's and thump up's conversation. both of you give quite constructive arguments.

Lord Nguyen decreed that "women dresses had to sewn together", speaking in Vietnamese, áo yếm and áo ngoài phải mai chặt với nhau, so the inner shirt doesn't show.

BTW don't you see that áo ngũ than and áo dài never revealed any button like qipao does? Also the "high slit" of aodai is also more similar to áo tứ thân than to qipao.

I feel that in Manchu dresses, they create a low slit at around the knee just to make walking easy, not to make the dress "flow".



The high slits of aodai (which it inherited from áo ngũ thân and áo tứ thân) are there to make the dress "flow".

Which Nguyen Lord was that?

Here is something interesting.

We went from this:



To this:



To this:

Its possible.This painting is called 《安南國王至避暑山莊》 from 《十全敷藻圖冊》.Its about the king of vietnam went to beijing and asked the Qing emperor's permission to change viet clothing to Qing clothing.The emperor was very happy ,he even wrote a peom about it:《安南國王阮光平乞遵天朝衣冠》.

I know that slit difference and that's really what makes Ao Dai different, along with the fabric.
But the collar and the way it's buttoned seems the same (going straight down, or to the right and down the side).
There are ao dai that reveals buttons. I remember posting some old photos of Vietnamese
in the 20th century with them wearing Ao Dai with buttons showing. Add to that the pants that are worn with it.
Remember Vietnamese wore skirts up until Nguyen Dynasty.

It just feels so coincidental that we all of a sudden added in a collared style clothing similar to Qing clothing, and pants
whereas before it was nonexistent as seen in old paintings.



Wow. So coincidental.

You just answered a question that I just asked. lol

Lord Nguyễn Phục Khoát decreed,

"Thường phục thì đàn ông, đàn bà dùng áo cổ đứng ngắn tay, cửa ống tay rộng hoặc hẹp tùy tiện. Áo thì hai bên nách trở xuống phải khâu kín liền, không được xẻ mở. Duy đàn ông không muốn mặc áo cổ tròn ống tay hẹp cho tiện khi làm việc thì được phép ..." - from Đại Nam Thực Lục Tiền Biên

Translation of that bold part: "The upper garment, from the shoulders/armpits down, has to be sewn together, can't have open split".

Basically you can't reveal inner shirt anymore.

That doesn't make sense. The Kings of Vietnam at that time period were Lê folks and China recognized that. People under Lê rule always wore áo tứ thân. The Nguyễn folks were just "lords" and they wouldn't be able to have ambassadors to China representing "Annam". Only Lê kings would send ambassadors. Furthermore, Nguyễn folks were never recognized as "kings" of the country within Vietnam or China.

According to the title of that painting,its not an ambassador,its the king himself.And the Qing emperor in the painting is Qianlong.So are you sure Lê was the only king during the Qianlong period ?Im sorry i dont know that much about vietnam history,I was simply quoting from the internet.

That's one of the "earlier" kings of the Nguyễn dynasty right?

That shows the Nguyễn didn't really change their clothes to "Qing clothes" because if they did, you wouldn't see that picture.

Look at the picture of King Ming Mạng, he still wore "Hanfu-like" clothes. And this was in the 1830s


Under Thiệu Trị's reign (1841-1847)


The last pictures you show were late Nguyễn dynasty, when "áo dài" had already been revolutionized into its modern form.

If that painting was indeed in the 1750s then I'm certain about what I said. The Lê dynasty lasted until 1788.

There were Trịnh lords (from the Trịnh clan) and Nguyễn lords (from the Nguyễn clan) fighting each other, but officially they both were "subjects" to Lê king. Ancestors of the Nguyễn clan was actually a loyal subject to Lê kings who assisted the Lê when the Mạc took the throne. So both Nguyễn lords and Trịnh lords descended from people who wanted to assist the Lê.

The Chinese emperor recognized the Lê as kings of Vietnam, so it wouldn't make sense if any Chinese emperor accepted ambassadors from Nguyễn lords and refer to them as "King of Annam". If that was Qianlong, then the same Chinese emperor also sent a large army down with the reason "to help the Lê clan protect their throne" when Nguyễn Huệ was about to overthrow the Lê-Trịnh regime. So it didn't make sense to me that Chinese emperor would accept ambassadors from Nguyễn lords as if they were sent by Vietnamese "king".

Bull$hit This is Le Chieu Thong he used to be our king, but he is now a betrayer.

It's too coincidental to have the collar like that.

The picture of Minh Mang is similar to Qing dynasty clothing. Just because the clothing is loose doesn't mean
it's Hanfu. It's the collar area I'm focusing on.

The second picture is different I know. I seen that before but that clothing was reserved for Nho Si people only
everyone else had to change to the Qing influenced clothing which was altered to Vietnamese tastes.

I mean the headdress in this pic, look much much different from chinese headdress, even Soldier had their own Headress and shoes, i would say this and Tay Son Dynasty is much better than Nguyen Dynasty, take a look at the costume too:

The mandarin dresses of early Nguyễn dynasty don't look like Qing dress to me. They look more "Hanfu".

So Lord Nguyễn Phúc Khoát ordered for women to wear pants instead of skirt and to sew/close their upper garment together (so inner shirt won't be reviewed), but I don't think he really adopted Qing-style clothes.

I guess there were two variations of dresses by the early Nguyen dynasty.

This type was more for mandarin class

<-- notice the see-through two layers

This was more for commoner and scholars

<-- similar see-through two-layers


Nowadays those see-through two layered dresses are called "áo the"

Of course the collar was an influence from the Manchu. But other aspects were derived from earlier clothes.

And do you know what clothes for Manchu kings looked like?



Notice the sleeves (as well as the collar maybe)

These Nguyen clothes are obviously closer to Hanfu



Compare those clothes to the one in Nguyễn Trãi portrait (from early Lê dynasty - 1400s)

Again the key here is the Collar.

The sleeves and everything can be loose or tight. But the collar change is significant in the difference.

Look at how these guys:

They have collars instead of like Hanfu or old Vietnamese clothing wehre there was no collar.

Pretty much it reveals they're wearing a ao dai style shirt with an overcoat on top which has a circle cut to reveal the
collar:


Now look at Ly dynasty clothing.


Similar but very different because this one shows that there is no collar but the outercoat makes the undershirt seems like there's a collar.
This one reveals that the clothing underneath is something like a hanfu:

Of course they look similar to ao dai because aodai was derived from them (with a tint of Manchu influence)! Aodai didn't come from Qing clothes. They were derived from earlier Vietnamese clothes, which bear similarities to Hanfu.

Also you seem to forget that ancient clothes changed through time

^ Top row, 3rd from the left. That's basically áo dài with skirt.

And 2nd row, 3rd from the left. That's similar to áo mệnh phụ (royal áo dài) with skirt




Also what makes you think the key to aodai is the "collar"? Didn't you see that aodai's collar changed dramatically through time? Without the collar, it's still aodai. The key to aodai is the slit at waist-length. Without this slit, it's no longer aodai.

As I said, the collar was of course an influence from the Manchu.

Here are some "early aodai" they don't have the Manchu collar





Also let me clarify this, there are many types of "collar"
This type was an influence from Manchu


But this low collar is not necessarily from the Manchu


You see the same type of collar in many minorities of Vietnam

Ethnic Tày


Ethnic Thái


Their clothes weren't influenced by Manchu and they still have that type of collar.

I guess that means we both agreed there was some influence from Manchu.

I'm not looking for the key to Ao Dai but the key to which clothing influenced the Ao Dai.
Manchu clothing, especially the chest up and collar is like Ao Dai, Han Fu is more like ancient Ao Tu Than.
What I was trying to say was, Ao Dai's collar was influenced by Manchu clothing because before then
our clothing was collarless like the Hanfu.

Nguyen dynasty clothing like the ones you posted above show a transition in the change from collarless to collar.
So scholars still wore hanfu styled clothing but the King and Queen and commoners etc had switched to a more
Manchu influenced (even though there was still Vietnamese characteristics like the slits).