Diem Tinh Hoa Nhan performed by Hanoi Sennen Yoseiko.

Hanoians flocked to the pedestrian streets around Hoan Kiem Lake at the end of March to enjoy the annual Japanese festival, with highlights including a cherry blossom display and a traditional Yosakoi dance contest.

Seventeen teams from all over the country showed off their skills on March 25, with one standout performance, partly because of the flamboyant choreography, but mainly because of their unique costume choice: the nhat binh, a 19th-century dress designed for a Vietnamese princess.

Prominent dance team Hanoi Sennen Yoseiko took first place with a routine titled "Diem Tinh Hoa Nhan," in which the team members performed in dresses designed after the antique royal attires from the Nguyen Dynasty, Vietnam’s last ruling family.

Princess My Luong in the traditional royal clothing in the city of Hue in a 1931 for a photo taken by the National Geographic Society. Photo by manhhai via Flickr.

While the male members wore ao tac, a variant of the ao dai with baggy sleeves and used as formal attire for all social castes in the 19th and 20th centuries, the females showed off their moves in a modern recreation of the nhat binh, a casual garment for queens and princesses from the Nguyen Dynasty.

Footage of the team’s performance has gone viral on Facebook, the country’s most popular social network. One of the videos attracted 300,000 views within two days, flooded with comments praising their choices of costume and music.

For anyone who is not acquainted with Japanese culture, Yosakoi is a popular style of dancing that combines traditional Japanese dance movements with modern music. People hold small wooden clappers and dance to the up-tempo beat and chants.

It took Nhung and her fellows one month to prepare 100 nhat binh dresses for the contest, which they also plan to bring to the international 2018 Yosakoi Festival in Japan in August.

The recreated Nhat Binh dress of Princess My Luong by Nguyen Phong Doan Linh, a Facebook community for history lovers in Vietnam.

Vietnamese royal attire has become a recent sensation among local young fashion and history lovers thanks to its vibrant colors and exquisite detail. With the help of vast archive the internet offers, many young people have started to recreate the elegant wardrobe from old photos of the royal families.

The most famous nhat binh were worn by Empress Nam Phuong and Princess My Luong, particularly after color photos of them emerged online lately, prompting several recreations and cosplays.

Yet the royal clothes remain largely unknown to the broader public, who tend to mistake them for either Japanese or Chinese attire.

Source: VnExpress