Contemporary re-emergence of the Qipao: Political nationalism, cultural production and popular consumption of a traditional Chinese dress

China Quarterly

Volumn , Issue 189, 2007, Pages 144-161

  Chew, Matthew ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CONSUMPTION BEHAVIOR; CULTURAL TRADITION; NATIONALISM; STATE ROLE;

ASIA; CHINA; EURASIA; FAR EAST;

EID: 33947411127     PISSN: 03057410     EISSN: 14682648     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0305741006000841     Document Type: Article

References (56)

1. For the recent history of the qipao, see Annie Chan, "Fashioning change: Nationalism, colonialism, and modernity in Hong Kong," Postcolonial Studies: Culture, Politics, Economy, Vol. 3, No. 3 (2000), pp. 293-310
2. Chua Beng-Huat, "Postcolonial sites, global flows and fashion codes: A case-study of power cheongsams and other clothing styles in modern Singapore," Postcolonial Studies: Culture, Politics, Economy, Vol. 3, No. 3 (2000), pp. 279-83;
3. Hazel Clark, The Cheongsam (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2000);
4. and Antonia Finnane, "What should Chinese women wear? A national problem," Modern China, Vol. 22, No. 2 (1996), pp. 99-132.
5. For stylistic descriptions of the qipao, see Valery Garrett, Chinese Clothing: An Illustrated Guide (Hong Kong; New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 104-106,
6. Clark, The Cheongsam,
7. and Yuan Jieying, Chinese Qipao (Beijing: Chinese Textile Press, 2000).
8. See Clark, The Cheongsam
9. and Finnane, "What should Chinese women wear?"
10. See Jennifer Craik, The Face of Fashion: Cultural Studies in Fashion (London & New York: Routledge, 1994),
11. or the chapters in Joanne B. Eicher (ed.), Dress and Ethnicity: Change across Space and Time (Oxford: Berg, 1995).
12. Data for this study are collected from several sources. I have conducted extensive fieldwork for a larger project (of which this is a part) on the social aspect of contemporary fashion practices in China between 2000 and 2002. I stayed in several urban centres that represent different fashion cultures, different degrees of influence by global fashion, as well as different kinds of fashion localization processes. I conducted in-depth ethnographic interviews with over 100 women in these cities, most of them falling within the age range of 16 and 32. I have also discussed with numerous fashion professionals the local circumstances of the qipao's popularity and the varied consumer responses to its popularity. My second source of data is over 1,000 relevant scholarly and journalists' articles written in the PRC after 1989, found through major databases including the China Core Newspaper Databases, the China Journal Net and Wanfang Databases. My third source is fashion and qipao related websites. My fourth source is media articles on the qipao in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and the West. There I found reports on celebrities wearing qipaos, pictures with qipao-inspired designs and collections, and accounts of the reception of the qipao outside the PRC.
13. According to Finnane, there was a brief revival of the qipao in the early 1980s in the PRC. But it must have been very brief and limited in scale. See Finnane, "What should Chinese women wear?"
14. See Clark, The Cheongsam, p. 53.
15. See Clark, The Cheongsam, pp. 56-63.
16. See Chua Beng-Huat, "Postcolonial sites," pp. 281-82.
17. Anonymous, "Dianying dailai shangji Harbin chuxian 'huayang nianhua' qipao dian" ("Movie is bringing business opportunities: A qipao shop named after In the Mood for Love is opened in Harbin"), Zhuhai tequ bao, 3 April 2001;
18. Anonymous, "Wanlifu shichang heri yong chunchao" ("When the formal dress market will bloom"), Sichuan ribao, 25 December 2002;
19. Anonymous, "Chengdu nuxing jinxia liuxing chuan qipao" ("Qipao is the trend for women in Chengdu this summer"), Tianfu ribao, 9 June 2002;
20. Zhang Wenjun, "Qipao dangdao: Beijing nulang quan faxiao" ("Qipao rules: Beijing girls are crazy for it"), Shangye xinwen, Vol. 28 (2001), pp. 76-77.
21. In response to the thread "Do you think wearing qipaos to work is weird?" in the forum at www.china-qipao.com, even qipao lovers themselves show entirely split reactions to whether qipaos ought to be worn in the workplace.
22. Chua Beng-Huat, "Postcolonial sites," pp. 279-83.
23. Tao Siliang, "Shuo bujin de Zhongguo nushizhang" ("Can't say enough about Chinese women mayors"), Jingji ribao, 6 April 1995.
24. The site has been restructured and moved to different domain names many times. The valuable discussions conducted in its forum in the past are now lost.
25. Yang Linlin, "Guilai xi, qipao!" ("Come back, qipao!"), Jingji ribao, 19 October 1994.
26. Finnane, "What should Chinese women wear?" p. 125.
27. The multivalent meanings of the qipao can be witnessed in performances where the traditional dresses of non-Han ethnic groups in the PRC go on the same stage with the qipao. It is difficult to tell whether the qipao is an ethnic sartorial symbol (for the Manchurian ethnic group) or a national one in these cases.
28. For a stylistic description of the tangzhuang, see Ding Xiqiang (ed.), Xintangzhuang (Shanghai: Shanghai kexue jishu chubanshe, 2002).
29. Zhang Xueying, "Traditional-style dress comes back into vogue," China Today, February 2002.
30. Kang Yilun, "Furen ping waijiao buchuan qipao bu shopping" ("The lady works hard for diplomacy: No qipaos and no shopping"), Xin Xinwen, Vol. 811 (2002), p. 34.
31. Ai Yu, "Diyi furen di qipao yiai" ("The First Lady's beloved qipaos"), Yazhou zhoukan, 3 January 2000, p. 53.
32. Xie Ping, "Jiuqi Xianggang zhang daquan de nurenmen" ("The great women power holders in Hong Kong"), Chengxiang jianshe, Vol. 9 (1997), pp. 36-38 (article originally published in Xiwang zazhi, July 1997).
33. See Craik, The Face, pp. 37-38.
34. Dorinne K. Kondo, "Orientalizing: Fashioning Japan," in About Face: Performing Race in Fashion and Theater (New York: Routledge, 1997, pp. 55-104,
35. and Lise Skov, "Fashion-nation: A Japanese globalization experience and a Hong Kong dilemma," in Sandra Niessen, Ann Marie Leshkowich and Carla Jones (eds.), Re-Orienting Fashion: The Globalization of Asian Dress (Oxford: Berg, 2003), pp. 215-42.
36. In the context of Japanese fashion, the international reception of Rei Kawabuko and Yoshi Yamamoto has demonstrated this clearly. Narumi Hiroshi, "Fashion orientalism and the limits of counter culture," Postcolonial Studies: Culture, Politics, Economy, Vol. 3, No. 3 (2000), pp. 311-29.
37. Zhang, Xiao, "Wohutuan qipao tai baoshou, zhuanjia: Ziyou Zhang Ziyi you chuangyi" ("The qipaos of the Crouching Tiger team are too conservative, experts comments that only Zhang Ziyi's outift is creative"), Huaxin xinwen wang, 26 March 2001.
38. Wei Hongshan, "Chen Yifei huihua: Hou zhimin piping jiedu" ("Chen Yifei's paintings: A postcolonial critical reading"), Wenyi lilun yu pipan, Vol. 5 (2001), pp. 121-27.
39. See Liu Bin, "Xijimo: Zhongguofeng chong xifang chuiqi" ("End of the century: China craze arising in the West"), Decoration, Vol. 14, No. 1 (1999), pp. 14-15;
40. Xu Xing, "Zhongguo chuantong fushi wenhua dui xiandai shishang de yingxiang" ("Chinese traditional fashion culture's influence on contemporary fashion"), Silk, Vol. 12 (2001), pp. 36-38;
41. Yang Tao, "Zhongshi fuzhuang de xianzhuang ji fazhan qushi" ("The development trends and current state of Chinese style dress"), Academic Journal of Suzhou University (Industrial Disciplines), Vol. 3 (2002), pp. 126-28.
42. Liu Bin, "End of the century," pp. 14-15;
43. Liu Xing, "Faguo fuzhuang jie guaqi Zhongguo feng" ("The French fashion scene is blowing Chinese wind") Fujian qingfang, Vol. 1 (2000).
44. I will elaborate them in a later section. For reference, see Li Jianhua and Yuan Jianhui, "Shishang daoxiang de daode xunjiu" ("A study of moral guidance to fashion"), Journal of Changde Teachers University (Social Science Edition), Vol. 27, No. 1 (2002), pp. 39-42;
45. Luo Xi, "You wenhua de yangzi" ("The cultivated and refined look"), Xiandai jiaozhi, Vol. 12 (2001), pp. 18-19;
46. and Xue Yan, "Dianya: Nujiaoshi yushi de shenmei diyun" ("Elegance: basic fashion aesthetics of female teachers"), Shandong jiaoyu, Vol. 17 (2000), p. 17.
47. See Susan Sangren "Qipao says freedom sometimes," in http://www.angelfire.com/co3/cheongsam/sangren.html, 29th September 1999.
48. Some of the interesting details of wearing qipaos in multicultural gatherings will be discussed in another article.
49. For example, a high degree of see-throughness in dresses and blouses which results in the partial exposing of bras or underpants is often tolerated.
50. It is claimed that some of the fabrics were actually made in the historical modern period.
51. See Tang Xianbin, Liti yu pingmian: Zhongxi fuxi wenhua bijiao (The Cubic and the Two-dimensional: Comparison of Chinese and Western Sartorial Cultures) (Beijing: Zhongguo fangzhi chubanshe, 2002).
52. A part from qipaos, there are a small number of stylistic solutions to the socio-moral dilemma in the Chinese fashion market. The "Fairmaiden" style of the Sunuwu label, for example, is one of them.
53. Li and Yuan, "A study of moral guidance to fashion," pp. 39-42.
54. Ibid. p. 41.
55. Luo Xi, "The cultivated and refined look," p. 18.
56. Xue Yan, "Elegance," p. 17.