Qipao/Cheongsam: A Cultural History of Modern Chinese Fashion

Qipao, better known in English by its Cantonese name cheongsam, is an iconic Chinese dress featuring a body-hugging cut, standing collars, side closure, and side slits. A modern style invented in Shanghai in the 1920s, the qipao still plays an important role in Chinese fashion and life today, and it continues to capture the artistic and cultural imagination internationally. This seminar examines the history of modern Chinese fashion through the lens of this quintessential dress, looking at its stylistic developments, shifting historical contexts, and changing cultural meanings both in China and globally. We will first focus on the birth of the qipao and its ambivalent relationship to the Manchu gown of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), its developments in Republican China (1912-1949) as a fashionable style for all women, its central roles in the new textile industry, fashion culture, urban culture, and modernization projects in this period, and the debates on nationalism, modernity, and gendered roles surrounding this style. We will then explore the continuing flourishment of the qipao in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and among overseas Chinese from the 1950s to the 1970s, when the style was banned in Mainland China under radical communism. Lastly, we will look at the contemporary revival of the qipao both as a ceremonial dress and daily wear in China and among overseas Chinese since the 1990s. We will also discuss the enduring inspiration that the qipao lends to Chinese and international cinema and fashion designs, and how it is represented in contemporary exhibitions and media of popular culture. Combining close analysis of historical and contemporary examples and surveys of a wide range of visual materials, texts, and films, this course will investigate the qipao as a multivalent and contested cultural symbol central to the history and imagination of modern Chinese fashion. 3 credits. Satisfies the geocultural requirement.