Alencon: Saigon Charity Cabaret

The cocktail mix of entertainment and charity brought out a fine sliver of Saigon's expats and expat lifestylers for a comic strip cabaret event supporting charities for the disadvantaged in Vietnam.

The lingering Halloween spirit in Saigon stretched out for another week with animated characters, super villains and comic book heroines that came-to-life at this year's Charity Comic Strip Cabaret. Attendees spent their evening at the Intercontinental Hotel dressed up as Superheroes, the Scooby Doo gang, Belgian Tintin adventurers, Mattel Barbie Collections, French characters from Asterix and Obelix and major Box Office hits ie X-Men and Dick Tracey; to name a few.

Imagination is boundless in a city like Saigon for costume parties. Custom tailoring is so abundant and reasonably economical, that one only needs an idea and a few days to spark the creation of a fantastic costume. The result is a plethora of colors, detail and custom-fitted costumes that would be quite difficult to find anywhere else in the world - except the likes of Hollywood.

There were some attendees that leveraged recent business trips abroad to purchase more popular pret-a-porter costumes like Superman (from London) and Captain America (from San Francisco). While other party veterans put several months of planning into their costumes, including the "French Table", which gathered an elaborate cast from Asterix and Obelix, which required two months of preparation and tailoring from a local costume maker. T&T on Thao Dien in District 2 is one tailor shop known for creating costumes, hats and accessories from just a simple picture or magazine cut-out. Others found costume paraphernalia at wig retailers in Ben Thanh market in District 1 or costume shops on Pasteur Street or in Cholon.