The main purpose of this paper was to investigate how ethnic dresses are adopted into modern fashion designs. This research focuses on Japan and Vietnam as a part of an ongoing larger project which examines ethnic dresses of five Asian countries. Fashion designs with influences of Japanese and Vietnames ethnic dresses were anlayzed in order to explore how ethnic dresses coexist with "world fashion" in contemporary society. Eight fashion magazines were examined and the pictures of eigher Japanese or Vietnamese influences were identified. A total of 66 pictures for Japan and 5 for Vietnam were analyzed in terms of eleven characteristics on zero-to-three scales according to authenticity of each characteristic. The characteristics included shape, item, silhouette, color, material, textile print, decorative details, method of dressing, accessories, hairstyle and make-up. The results showed that textile prints and color of Japanese ethnic dresses, and item, silhouette and hat of Vietnamese dresses were most frequently adopted in modern fashion designs. These suggested that fashion world adopts the most distinctive and easy-to-copy characteristics of the ethnic dresses when the designers wanted to incorporate the styles of ethnic dresses.c dresses.