Ornament is the leading magazine celebrating wearable art. Explore jewelry, fashion, beads; contemporary, ancient and ethnographic.
Issue link: http://ornamentmagazine.epubxp.com/i/77981
POSTER by Zhi Yin depicting four 'taxi dancers' or wunru (dancing girl) clothed and coiffed in latest styles. Courtesy of Asian Art Museum, San Francisco. EMPRESS WANRONG AND EMPEROR PUYI, she in qipao. Courtesy of Prof. Wang, JSSI. CONTEMPORARY SLEEVELESS MINI QIPAO. Photograph by Susan Yu. Anyone wearing a qipao would be accused and even persecuted for 'pursuing a bourgeois life style.' With the economic reforms taking off in China in the early 1980s, one begins to see the resurgence of the qipao. 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. An incredible number of chic name brands such as Shanghai Tang and Blanc de Chine have put the traditional Chinese dress on the international map. So what is next for the qipao? Will it survive the twenty- first century and will it perhaps morph into a slightly different form? Or might it even take an abstract turn and revert to the fashion is unpredictable and can be full of surprises. We will just have to wait and see. SUGGESTED READING Bao, Mingxin, Juanjuan Wu, Li Ma, Shu Yang, and Di Wu. Chinese Qipao. Shanghai: Shanghai Literature Publishing House, 1998. Finnane, Antonia. Changing Clothes in China: Fashion, History, Nation. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008. Jackson, Beverley. Shanghai Girl Gets All Dressed Up. Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 2005. Knight, Michael and Dany Chan. Shanghai – Art of the City. San Francisco: Asian Art Museum, 2010. Chambers, Marlene, Carol Rawlings and Margaret Ritchie. Secret Splendors of the Chinese Court. Denver: Denver Art Museum, 1981. Shen, Shou and Zhang Jian. Xue Huan Xiu Pu Tu Shu. 1918-1919. Wang, Qing Xiang. Zhong Guo Mo Dai Huang Hao He Huang Fei – Wanrong and Wenxiu Zhuan. Tuan Jie Publishing, 2006. Wilson, Verity. Chinese Dress. London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1986. Wu, Juanjuan. Chinese Fashion from Mao to Now. Oxford: Berg, 2009. Zhou, Xi Bao. Zhong Guo Gu Dai Fu Shi Shi. Zhong Guo Xi Ju Publishing, 1996. 63 ORNAMENT 35.5.2012