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Cheongsam

Advertisement from the 1930's for Victoria soap, showing two women wearing a cheongsam. Advertisement from the 1930's for Victoria soap, showing two women wearing a cheongsam.

The cheongsam is regarded as the ‘standard’ dress for Chinese women from the 1930's until the 1960's. During this time it was popular in China’s main cities such as Shanghai as well as Hong Kong, Taiwan and among the Chinese diaspora throughout the world. They were often embroidered, either by hand or with a machine. There have been attempts to make the cheongsam into the national dress of China.

The term cheongsam comes from cheuhngsaam, the Cantonese pronunciation of the Shanghainese term zamsea, meaning ‘long shirt’ or ‘long dress.’ The cheongsam is known in Mandarin Chinese as the qipao (lit. 'banner gown'; named after members of the Manchu banner group who wore a similar style garment). Both the male and female versions are sometimes known in English as the Mandarin gown.

By the 1930's the term cheongsam or qipao had become generally associated with a single, tight fitting garment worn by women. Nowadays, most Western countries use the Shanghainese term cheongsam for this type of garment worn by women.

Sources:

  • HONG KONG MUSEUM (2010), The Evergreen Classic: Transformation of the Qipao, exhibition catalogue, Hong Kong Museum of History, Hong Kong.
  • TSUI, Christine (2009), China Fashion: Conversations with Designers, Berg Publications, Oxford, 2009.
  • WILSON, Verity (1986), Chinese Dress, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
  • WU, Juanjuan (2009), Chinese Fashion from Mao to Now, Berg Publications, Oxford.

Digital source of illustration (retrieved 5th July 2016).

GVE

Last modified on Friday, 05 May 2017 11:11