Abridged history of early 20th century Chinese womenswear (part 6.1: 1950s&60s-Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau and friends)
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*I know the 50s and 60s aren’t early 20th century but I don’t care, this is a continuous narrative.
Previous posts in the series:
Part 1: 1890s
Part 2: 1900s & 1910s
Part 3.1: 1920s-silhouette
Part 3.2: 1920s-design details
Part 3.3: 1920s-accessories, hair & makeup
Part 4.1: 1930s-silhouette & design
Part 4.2: 1930s-hair, makeup & accessories
Part 5: 1940s
Intro/Context
After the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, many cheongsam makers from Shanghai moved base to Hong Kong. Hong Kong became the new center of cheongsam design and production, creating the “Hong Kong style cheongsam” of the mid 20th century. Cheongsam adopted the extreme hourglass silhouette of Christian Dior’s influential New Look collection, achieved by Western tailoring techniques.
According to popular opinion, fashionable clothing like cheongsam and “traditional clothing” (whatever that means?) dropped dead in mainland China after the communist takeover. This is bullshit and please see my post on 1950s mainland China for info on women’s fashion there, this post will focus on fashion in non mainland areas.
Silhouette & design
When Christian Dior released his New Look collection in 1947, China was still in the middle of a massive civil war so the silhouette didn’t take hold immediately. The early 50s continued the late 40s cheongsam style with a mid calf skirt and tall, rectangular standing collar. There wasn’t much in way of binding and trimmings, the edges and hems were commonly plain. Ornamental buttons weren’t common either since concealed snap buttons or hooks and eyes were used, and the collar would sometimes be closed with a brooch. To make up for this plainness in decorations, the fabrics were often loud and colorful, with floral or geometric printed patterns.
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Poster for the 1951 movie Red and White Azaleas, showing late 40s/early 50s “Shanghai” style cheongsam with tall collar.
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Poster for the 1952 movie A Bright Future.
As the 50s progressed, the extreme hourglass silhouette caught on and cheongsam makers started to use darts, shoulder seams, zippers and other Western shenanigans. I’m not exactly sure in which year specifically the New Look was adopted by cheongsam makers, but it was around 1953-ish.
Because of its slender, tubular shape, cheongsam latched on to Western sheath dresses as its base silhouette. The poofy skirts of the New Look were not applied on cheongsam in the 50s and 60s, instead cheongsam skirts were tight and pencil shaped. Because of the tight skirt, higher slits needed to be made for freedom of movement; in the 50s and 60s they could sit high on the thighs, almost reaching the hips, but worry not about flashing cause undergarments were worn. Short slits also existed but were less common, as it was more restrictive and harder to move around in. The collar was very tall at the back but tapers down dramatically at the front. This style of tall collar was different from the early 50s style in that it had a huge v-shaped gap at the front. In the mid 50s the hem began to rise, reaching knee length by the end of the decade.
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50s photograph of women in cheongsam.
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50s Butterick sheath dress sewing pattern. (I love how vintage fashion illustration poses give off massive jojo vibes, Christian DIOr I guess??) (that was bad I’ll see myself out)
I’ve made a diagram showing the most common ways to shape a 50s/60s cheongsam with darts.
The most common method was number 1, where you have two long, vertical darts in the front and one short, horizontal dart at each side. This was also the most common method used on 50s Western dresses. Method 2 uses diagonal darts at the side instead of horizontal ones. Method 3 features an optional second horizontal dart for further shaping. In the back piece, there was usually two vertical darts as well. The end shape these three methods achieve is pretty similar, an extreme hourglass with pointy breasts and small waist.
The decorations used on cheongsam became more various in the 50s. The side opening was closed by a zipper down the side and snap buttons at the front, which meant that pankous were no longer required; indeed, cheongsam completely devoid of pankous were the most common in the 50s and 60s. But some cheongsam makers used it as a decorative feature, sometimes replacing the fabric braided style pankou with metallic clasps. When binding was used, it was usually single row, either thin and plain or wide and elaborate with stereotypically Chinese patterns. Piping could be used. An interesting thing about 50s and 60s binding is that the binding at the collar seam was oftentimes neglected, leaving only the top of the collar and the side closure bound; I’m not exactly sure what the purpose of this was but maybe it was to elongate the wearer’s neck.
Source: orientally yours on Tumblr, link
60s cheongsam with metallic clasp closure and thin single row binding. No binding at collar seam.
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