The fashion show called “Dem hoi chan dai 7” (The long-legged bash 7) continues to spark criticism and will be subject to penalty from the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism for featuring an underwear show which wasn’t included when the program’s content was submitted to the department for approval.

According to Vo Trong Nam, the department’s deputy head, his department will penalize Venus Co., the program organizer, for featuring an unlicensed underwear show at the bash, which took place at the Saigon Exhibition and Convention Center in District 7 on May 20.

He added that the underwear show is also considered erotically obscene and culturally inappropriate by the department’s officials.

“This isn’t the first time Venus Co. has made such an offense. The department is considering suspending the release of permits to repeat offenders like Venus Co.,” Nam noted.

The penalty will also be imposed on the models who participated in the bash.

However, VNExpress quoted Vu Khac Tiep, Venus’ director, arguing that the costumes weren’t underwear, but were actually women’s shorts.

Tiep claimed that the show had received a go-ahead from department representatives during rehearsal.

This year’s bash wasn’t critically acclaimed either, with experts lamenting that there wasn’t much novelty or dexterity about the featured designs, which focused more on accentuating the models’ titillating curves.

Before the bash took place, the culture department also warned the organizer against the release of its invitation cards, which featured 19 semi-nude male and female models and the logo of a brandy brand.

Though the models included in the invites, which caused a huge stir and mixed opinions shortly after their release, had their intimate parts covered and are posed so that they don’t show too much flesh, more than a few people found the photo quite shocking and erotically obscene.

Some say that the organizers copied the idea of posing nude from western showbiz, but as the models were shot separately, the photo was just a cheap imitation and clumsy photoshop work.

Others also think the photo is nothing more than a cheap, yet effective, PR ploy.

Another of Venus Co.’s violations was a fashion show called “Model Look 2011” held in late 2011, which was fined by the culture department for changing the show’s name on their own and featuring an underwear show without permit.