Ornament Magazine

VOL35.5 2012

Ornament is the leading magazine celebrating wearable art. Explore jewelry, fashion, beads; contemporary, ancient and ethnographic.

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THE LAST EMPRESS IN QIPAO FROM MANCHU TO CHINA CHIC Designers capitalized on the romantic nostalgia of Shanghai with a modern- day interpretation of the qipao with the help of bright colors and patterns. Ironically what once was considered a peripheral and bourgeois item has now taken center stage and become a global fashion icon. Sally Yu Leung H er full name was Gobulo Wanrong. She was born November 13, 1906, during the turbulent time of the Qing empire. At the age of sixteen, she married Emperor Xuantong (Aisin-Gioro Puyi) who was the last emperor of China. Wanrong began her public life as an empress on the third day after their grand wedding. The imperial newly-wed hosted a reception within the Forbidden City to receive the foreign envoys. Empress Wanrong's ensemble of a Manchu robe, bejeweled headgear and raised platform shoes elevated her beauty and elegance. Her guests were easily won over with full admiration. In spite of being an opium addict and the scandal that surrounded her marriage to Emperor Puyi, Empress Wanrong was known for both her modernity and her unerring sense of style in a qipao. She had a star quality about her that seemed few people at the time naturally possessed. Since her death at the age of thirty-nine, Empress Wanrong's style can still wow a generation of women today in the twenty-first century. The term qipao actually refers to a version of a traditional Chinese woman's dress that was transformed into a slender and form-fitting garment in Shanghai after the 1900s at the downfall of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911). This more modern EMPRESS GOBULO WANRONG AND EMPEROR XUANTONG PUYI, she in a qipao and he in a Western suit, probably in the 1930s-1940s. Photograph courtesy of Professor Wang Qingxiang, Jilin Social Science Institute (JSSI), People's Republic of China. 58 ORNAMENT 35.5.2012

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