Vietnamese model Ngoc Trinh turned plenty of eyes in France last month when she showed up on the Cannes Film Festival red carpet in a nearly naked dress. But it turns out she turned many more eyes back home.
The 29-year-old fashion designer walked the carpet for the May 19 premiere of A Hidden Life in a barely-there black, beaded bodice with sheer front and back panels. A black thong and strategically placed crystals and embroidery completed the gown, leaving little to the imagination. She paired the look with a pair of sparkly platform ankle-strap pumps.
Now, reports say the 29-year-old star may face public indecency fines in her home country. Nguyen Ngoc Thien, the nation’s minister of culture, sports and tourism, railed against the look at the ongoing National Assembly session in Hanoi, according to the Vietnam Express. “She is not an artist that the ministry sent to the event,” he told legislators on Wednesday, June 5. “Her outfit was improper, offensive and has caused public outrage.”
The country is known to slap citizens who choose to wear skimpy clothes in public with fines. According to the paper, celebrities are most often the ones on the receiving end of the fashion crime penalties. Trinh’s daring outfit, however — which the UK’s Daily Express called the “festival’s most revealing look” — is apparently inspiring officials to consider making the laws even stricter.
According to the story in the Express at the time, Trinh was happy with the dress, designed by Do Long — though some online trolls described it as “sexually explicit,” “weird” and “gross”: “I’ve got a lot of praise for my outfit. I don’t care if people criticize it because I felt pretty in the dress, which made a good impression on the Cannes red carpet,” the paper quotes the star as saying. “I cannot satisfy the whole world.”
