An emerging female singer was named the winner of the first local season of British reality TV show X Factor in its finale yesterday, October 19.

X Factor Vietnam producer sorry for letting contestants don ethnic headwear as loincloth

Singer Giang Hong Ngoc, 25, beat her two strong contenders to win the show with 41% of viewers’ votes and pocketed an award of VND500 million (US$23,534).

Ngoc’s win is a predictable yet persuasive result, as her performances during the previous rounds and the finale, which took place at Ho Chi Minh City’s Zone 7 Stadium last night, were all highly acclaimed.

The show’s two runners-up are F Band and O Plus.

One of the four finalists, Loki Bao Long, dropped out due to personal reasons.

Before the finale actually began, the show’s host, on behalf of the organizer, publicly apologized to members of Vietnam’s Thai ethic minority and TV viewers for the incident regarding runner-up F Band’s use of the community’s iconic Pieu headwear as loincloth during the semifinal last Sunday.

During a performance in the semifinal show, which was aired on VTV3 – an entertainment channel of national broadcaster VTV, the band used the richly-colored Pieu brocade to wrap their lower part.

The band members and the organizers were both under the wrong assumption that the outfits, which they hired from the Youth Culture House in HCMC, are typical of Ba Na or Ede ethnic minorities in the Central Highlands.

The Pieu brocade is actually the iconic costume of the Thai ethnic minority in the northwestern region, one of Vietnam’s 54 officially-recognized ethnic groups, and has been featured in some local works of music and poetry.