Áo dài ao dai experienced a revival beginning in late 1980s, when state enterprise and schools began adopting the dress as a uniform again. In 1989, 16,000 Vietnamese attended a Miss Ao Dai Beauty Contest held in Ho Chi Minh City. When the Miss International Pageant in Tokyo gave its "Best National Costume" award to an ao dai-clad Trường Quỳnh Mai in 1995, "Thời Trang Trẻ" (New Fashion Magazine) claimed that Vietnam's "national soul" was "once again honored". An "ao dai craze" followed that lasted for several years and led to wider use of the dress as a school uniform. No longer
DAI (company) one of DAI's projects in 2010 described it as a "model of success". After the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, DAI won a project to help provide effective governance in the country. Other projects in Iraq covering agriculture and the restoration of the Iraqi Marshlands were to follow. For his work on the later project, DAI's Peter Reiss was awarded the Lourdes Arizpe award by the American Anthropological Association. The company established DAI Palestine in 2004. Following the Asian tsunami in December of that year DAI was recognized for its efforts in both Indonesia and Sri Lanka by then