Elegant with ao dai Hue. Photo: Dang Tuyen
Lack of promotion
According to statistics, there are over 50 establishments providing services of ao dai designing and tailoring in the area of Hue city, such as Bich Thuy, Phuc, Doan Trang, Minh Tam, Cuoc, Thu Hang, Tham, Chi silk, etc. Yet, according to these ao dai tailor shops, they have been mainly “gone self-advocacy” and competed to attract customers for a long time because they have neither registered the collective trademark nor built the Ao dai Hue brand name.
Besides, the work of promoting has not been paid attention to, so tourists can only approach the addresses of ao dai tailor establishments through cyclo drivers or tour guides. As a result, they have not found any prestigious establishments with skilled staff yet, which have great impacts on ao dai Hue brand name.
Learning tailoring from Viet Tan – the famous ao dai tailor and after getting startup in Ho Chi Minh city, Tran Viet Phuc opened the ao dai tailor shop named Phuc at 93 Thach Han street, Hue city. With the initiative capital of over 500 million VND, there are now 20 workers in the workshop with the productivity of over 20 sets of ao dai per day, and it also meets the demands of fast tailoring for tourists with the total time of 2.5 – 3 hours from taking measurements to collect products Thanks to the prestige and professionalism in making the well-tailored ao dai, the Ao dai Phuc establishment can make over 1,000 sets of ao dai per month, each costs 220,000 VND.
According to Mr. Tran Viet Phuc, Hue people have been into ao dai and tend to wear ao dai quite often as they used to in the old days. As for tourists, Hue is a favorite place to have a well-tailored ao dai, so he and his staff always look for new ways to modernize the ao dai to satisfy customers.
Nonetheless, the two channels Mr. Phuc’s workshop promotes products have been his personal webpage and tour guides. Thus, the productivity falls by the end of November as a result of a decrease in the number of tourists. His workers have to move to Thailand - and Laos-based workshops to keep on their work. If the work of promotion and trademark registration is implemented, tourists will be able to choose the prestigious and affordable ao dai tailor services and the tailors will make themselves “innovative” to attract customers.
Ao dai is the favorite costume of Hue women of all ages. Photo: Anh Quan
Designer Doan Trang, Director of Doan Trang Garment Embroidery Co., Ltd – a person whose preoccupation is find the best way to develop ao dai Hue brand name, revealed that she would like Hue to establish a center for displaying and introducing souvenirs, specialties and tailoring ao dai located right in the center of Hue city to allow visitors easy access to satisfying sets of ao dai.
Brand name establishment and development
In the beginning of 2019, the People’s Committee of Hue city launched the project of establishing, managing and developing the collective trademark “Ao dai Hue” for ao dai product. the project is part of the program of intellectual property development in the period of 2017 – 2020 implemented by the Economics Department of the People’s Committee of Hue city. The project aims to set up and protect the collective trademark “Ao dai Hue”, contributing to improving the trade value of ao dai Hue. At the same time, the project will build a system for managing, using, and promoting for Ao Dai Hue.
Mr. Dong Si Toan, the project convener, Head of Division of the Department of Economics of Hue city, said that the project will develop an illustration of the characteristics and qualities of ao dai products, define the extent of protection for the products bearing the collective trademark “ao dai Hue”, as well as build the appropriate tools for the management of the collective trademark of ao dai Hue, including product samples, symbols and logos, etc.
At least 80% of products of organizations and individuals are supported with setting up and registering the Intellectual Property Protection, and priority has been given to the inventions, the industrial designs, the trademarks and the collective trademarks for specialties of the province.
For a fine orientation towards and a timely establishment of the brand name of ao dai Hue, the steering committee of the intellectual property development program will hold a symposium “Promoting Hue cultural values in building Hue Ao Dai brand name” in the middle of March 2019. The symposium aims at measures to develop the brand name of ao dai Hue through the investment opportunities to boost the manufacturing and trading of ao dai products and through the support policies to develop the ao dai tailoring and the production and trade of ao dai Hue in provincial area.
Deputy Director of the Department of Science and Technology, Dr. Ho Thang said that in recent years, the Provincial People’s Committee has implemented many programs and activities to develop the brand name of ao dai Hue such as the fest of ao dai as an event at Hue Festivals, where businesses have their ao dai shows performed and their products of ao dai Hue exhibited, etc. This proves that the ao dai brand name has been brought into the culture life, becoming typical tourist product of Hue. In the future, the province will establish the association of ao dai and the association of ao dai tailoring in order to enhance the position of this product in domestic and international markets.
By Thanh Huong