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
Women in the Marshall Islands is matrilineal. This means that women are own "a great deal of power" because they predominate in making decisions "behind-the-scenes" even though men are seen as the "public performers". In the past, Marshall islander women who belong to the upper class are commonly distinguished by wearing "intricate tattoos", and were spoken to using "restricted speech genres" and "speaking styles". At present, modern-day women in the Marshall Islands may wear "American-style dress modified it to local norms" where the emerging elite may wear "costly dress and personal adornment". There are social welfare programs for women, particularly in urban areas, that had