The costume is not
only a big factor in the material life of human being, but also
the important symbol of social civilization. Besides satisfying
the living needs of people, it also represents the culture of
a period and a district. In the modern times, owing to the decision
of special era and region, the Shanghai fashion forms its sole
style, occupies an important position in the developing history
of Chinese costume.
In the rigidly hierarchic feudal society, the dress and costume
of people are strictly normalized by the rite system, ordinarily
promulgated by various dynasties, and carried on in various
places according to the style. But there is difference in the
modern times, following the collapse of the feudal system, the
traditional costume system walks out from the historical stage,
people can completely select their own favorite costumes according
to what they like, the costume culture enters in an unprecedented
booming and active era, one of the most apparent symbols is
the appearance of fashionable dress. Shanghai becomes the popular
and propagating center of fashionable dress, and enjoys the
excellent reputation of "Eastern Paris". Beside the
economic and political factors, the costume also has intimate
relation with the prevailing custom, habit and cultural life
of modern Shanghai.
At the beginning of Republic of China, the man costume mainly
adopted the mandarin jacket and long gown. The mandarin jacket
and long gown used as the formal attire all had certain form
on style, material, color and concrete size. The color of
the mandarin jacket and long gown used as the casual costumes
had no limitation. During the beginning of spring or late
autumn, people usually put a sleeveless waistcoat outside
the long gown to replace the mandarin jacket.
Following the western wind gradually moving to the east,
the men in Shanghai especially the staffs of many foreign
companies firstly put on the western costume but not rejected
the traditional costume, the mandarin jacket, long gown and
western costume appeared concurrently. At the same time, the
intellectual and young student out on a kind of simple western
costume known as the "student's costume". Dr. Sun
Yat Sen was very fond of such costume at that time; later
on it was called honorably as "Zhong Shan Costume".
Entering in 1920s, the woman's costume of Shanghai gradually
preferred gorgeous style, the most characteristic point was
putting on Qi Pao (a close-fitting woman's Chinese gown with
high neck and slit skirt) wid. Originally Qi Pao was a kind
of dress put on by Manchurian women with full front and back
etc. There were two reasons why many women were fond of such
kind of dress: (1) economic and convenient, one suit of Qi
Pao could substitute several dresses, and also greatly reduced
the cost of material and workmanship. (2) Beautiful and fitting
the body. Because of Qi Pao connected and combined the upper
and lower parts of the body in one, it's easy to set off a
woman's figure. At the beginning of 1920s, the style of Qi
Pao was still not born out of the Qi Dress at the end of Qing
Dynasty, but soon the cuff began to be restrained, the embroidered
side was not as broad as before. Till the end of 1920's, owing
to the influence by European and American costume, the style
of Qi Pao changed apparently, such as reduced the length,
tightened up the waistline.
As developing to 1930s, Qi Pao was very popular in various
places. The style of Qi Pao in this period absorbed the peculiarity
of western dress on the traditional basis, became a kind of
Sino-western combined dress, brought forth new ideas and changed
continuously. The host of making such a change was the costume
circle of Shanghai.
Beginning from 1940s, the style of Qi Pao trended towards
neatness, this peculiarity reflected most progressively in
summer, generally canceled the sleeve, shortened the length,
reduced the height of the collar, and omitted many over-laden
decorations, made it more light and suitable for the body.
In 1950s and 1960s, people used to put on simple dresses,
and the make-up was plain. Men used to take Zhongshan, Lenin
and student dresses as the main dresses, women mostly put
on the short Chinese style coats and skirts with the style
of buttons down the front and narrow sleeves, the color of
costume was popular in blue and grey. During the middle period
of 1960s, the grass green color military uniform was very
popular among the people, no matter male or female all liked
it. After the reform and opening, the national economy has
developed rapidly, people's dress and make-up gradually become
exquisite. The men and women's costume develops towards personalization
and fashionableness, and gradually connects the rain with
international metropolis.
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