Collections of ao dai from Vietnam’s three regions - the North, South and central -will be paraded by models from Ngoc Son Temple to The Huc Bridge and But Temple on Sword Lake. The dress collections will be displayed along a specially-built 350m catwalk decorated with woven mats, conical hats, and lively dioramas depicting Hanoi in ancient times.

The 45-minute ao dai performance, which will be broadcast live nationally on TV, will be followed by a 15-minute light festival and fireworks display.

Vietnamese designer Duc Hung will bring his four seasons collection to the festival.

“Hanoi has four seasons with distinctive characters which inspired me to create this collection,” said Hung.

Hung said he carefully selected made-in-Vietnam materials and colors for his collections, using brocade for spring, silk for summer, voile for autumn, and velvet for winter.

Hung’s ao dai collections will also present colors representing Vietnamese festivals of three regions such as pink for peach blossoms for Tet in the North, Hue purple for the Central and bright yellow representing the apricot blossoms of the South. Hung has designed 500 sets of ao dai as gifts for the festival to promote the Vietnamese long dress for international friends - Japan, France and Russia.

Hung’s ao dai collection will again be paraded to the sound of bronze drums in the program “Thang Long – the flying dragon city” on the evening of October 10 at the My Dinh National Stadium.