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
Áo dài on both sides, features preserved in the later ao dai. Compared to a modern ao dai, the front and back flaps were much broader and the fit looser and much shorter. It had a high collar and was buttoned in the same fashion as a modern ao dai. Women could wear the dress with the top few buttons undone, revealing a glimpse of their "yếm" underneath. Huế's Đồng Khánh Girl's High School, which opened in 1917, was widely praised for the ao dai uniform worn by its students. The first modernized ao dai appeared at a Paris fashion show in