At this time, the fashion center had already moved from Su and Yang to Shanghai. Shanghai, an open commercial port, is a place where China and the West coexist, and people from all over the world live together, making it a luxurious and prosperous place with a ten-mile foreign market. Shanghai is also an important city for women seeking liberation. Missionaries, businessmen, and revolutionaries competed to establish women's schools, setting off a wave of women's rights movements. The social climate seeking liberation eliminated stereotypes and bad habits in clothing and makeup. Clothing decoration swept away the pretentiousness of the Qing Dynasty and tended to be simple and elegant, focusing on reflecting the natural beauty of women. The cheongsam originally appeared in the form of a vest, which was as long as the instep and was added to a short coat. Later, the long vest was changed into a style with sleeves, which became the prototype of the new cheongsam. It is said that the Shanghai female students who pioneered the popularity of cheongsam are the initiators of the popularity of cheongsam. At that time, female students, as representatives of intellectual women, became the ideal image of society. They were symbols of civilization and pioneers of fashion. Even celebrities, brothel girls and other fashionable figures dressed up as female students. The 1930s and 1940s were the heyday of the cheongsam, and its basic silhouette has reached maturity. The new style cheongsam, which emerged after the Revolution of 1911 and became popular during the Northern Expedition, is different from the robes worn by flag girls. The improved cheongsam that appeared in the late 1930s also incorporated Western tailoring methods in structure to make the robe more fitted. This will be introduced in detail in subsequent chapters. Although the cheongsam was born out of the Qing Dynasty flag women's robes, it has become different from the old system and has become the standard clothing for modern Chinese women that combines Chinese and Western clothing characteristics.
The attire of flag girls and Han girls
As a female attire, the cheongsam has a close relationship with flag girls. The so-called banner girl refers to the female members of the banner family; the banner person is the name given to those who were incorporated into the Eight Banners in the Qing Dynasty. The composition of the Eight Banners in the Qing Dynasty was mainly Manchu, with a mixture of Han, Mongolian and other ethnic groups. In addition to the clan and Jueluo of the Qing royal family Aisin Gioro, the Eight Banners also include the Eight Banners Manchuria, the Eight Banners Mongolia and the Eight Banners Han Army. The Eight Banners Han Army and the Eight Banners Mongolia were composed of vassaled Han and Mongolians respectively. At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, the Eight Banners Han army numbered 260,000, which was three times the number of the Eight Banners Manchurian and Eight Banners Mongolia combined. Therefore, the banner people are not only Manchus, but also Mongolians or Hans. In this way, it would be inaccurate to define cheongsam as a garment worn by the Manchu people. The Manchus are a minority living in the north. They are good at fishing and hunting and nomadic. The robes they wear are open on all sides and have buckle belts. They are easy to take off and keep warm, which is very suitable for their lifestyle. The Han and Mongols who later joined them also adopted this style of clothing. At the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, the Eight Banners system was gradually established. The robes of the bannermen changed and developed, and were also different from the styles in early Manchuria. The robes worn by the flag girls at this time can be said to be the real predecessor of the cheongsam. It was not until the Republic of China that it became modern The traditional cheongsam is called new cheongsam or new style cheongsam. There were obvious differences between the robes of flag girls and the attire of Han women in the early Qing Dynasty.
After the Manchus entered the customs and became rulers, they forced the Han people to shave their hair and change clothes. However, the mandatory clothing assimilation policy not only failed to achieve the expected goal, but also aroused strong resistance from the Han people. In order to ease the contradiction, the Qing government had to adopt the "Ten Disobediences" of Jin Zhijun, a survivor of the Ming Dynasty. Among them are: "men should obey women but not women", "life should obey death but not obey", "advocate obedience to elites but not obedience". Several conditions, such as "Officials are therefore disobedient in marriage", allowed Han women to continue to wear clothes that showed the integrity of their nation. At the same time, costumes, wedding dresses, and funeral clothes were also allowed to maintain the Ming Dynasty style.
There are also many differences in the specific shapes of cheongsam and coat skirt. For example, cheongsam has one-line lapels, missing lapels and other slanted lapels. There are horse hoof sleeves on the dress, but most coat skirts have double breasts; Wearing a collar for wiping, followed the cross-collar of the ethnic group, while the cheongsam did not have a collar at first, and only wore a scarf. It was not until the late Qing Dynasty that cheongsams had a stand-up collar, and it was not a cross-collar. In terms of decoration and compatibility, the cheongsam was originally quite simple. After entering the customs, it gradually developed in a complicated direction, even greatly surpassing the Han women's coat and skirt. It was inlaid, rolled, inlaid, embroidered, swung, pasted, plated and nailed in everything. (This can also be seen on Han women's coat skirts), and many formal gowns have sleeves and arrow sleeves, so that the entire sleeve is divided into several sections, each section has a completely different pattern, color and fabric. It’s something that Chinese costumes don’t have.
The differences in the attire of flag girls and Han girls ultimately reflect the differences between foreign cultures. The introverted Han culture created the jacket and skirt, while the extroverted Eight Banners culture created the cheongsam. In a period when the two costumes are diametrically opposed, it is also a time when the two cultures collide. However, just as conflicts between cultures will gradually be reconciled and resolved, the differences in Qi and Han costumes are not irreconcilable. After the rule of the Qing Dynasty was stable, the society became more stable and prosperous, and the integration of ethnic groups was carried out unconsciously. Even the ban could not stop the cheongsam from becoming wider and with larger sleeves, and the coat from becoming longer and longer, similar to a robe. In the middle of the Qing Dynasty, the boundaries between the clothing of banner girls and Han girls were no longer so clear, and in the late Qing Dynasty, they even borrowed and used each other. The cheongsam adopts Han auspicious patterns and embroidery techniques, and the sleeves also have dark decorations similar to half arms. There are Han women wearing long waistcoats, and there are flag girls wearing very short robes that expose their feet. Qihan costumes from the same period will also reflect the same fashionable practices and decorative methods. In short, the attire of flag girls and Han girls has moved from the initial opposition to integration.
Banner robes and cheongsam
Cheongsam is not a fixed form, but a process of change and development. Although it seems not a big mistake to regard cheongsam as the robe of the bannermen or the robes of the banner girls, it is unavoidable that it is unreasonable. The connotation of cheongsam is much richer than the robe of the bannerman or the robe of the flag girl.
The Qing Dynasty's bannermen's robes included men's robes and women's robes, while cheongsam only refers to women's robes. Even if the robes worn by men in the Republic of China still bear the legacy of the Qing Dynasty, they are not considered cheongsam. Among the robes worn by bannermen, there are official robes and general daily robes. The official robes include dragon robes, python robes, regular robes and line robes, which are worn according to rank. Generally, men's robes were still long at first, but were not shortened to the knees until Shunzhi, and were soon lengthened to the ankles. The loose style is popular in the middle and late period, and the sleeves are more than a foot long. After the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese War and the Gengzi War, influenced by the form-fitting Western clothing style, the styles of men's robes became increasingly tight and thin, with long sleeves that covered the feet and sleeves that only covered the arms and did not cover the buttocks. Wearing this kind of robe, even squatting down will cause the clothes to burst. "Jinghua Bamboo Branch Ci" has a description of "the new style of clothes boasts roots, is extremely long and narrow, and is difficult to judge. Foreigners are very flexible in their clothes, and they are often entangled and unable to squat", which reflects the fashion trend of men's robes in the late Qing Dynasty.
The Qing Dynasty flag women's robes were not much different from the men's robes, the main difference was in the clothing patterns. The development of the flag girl's robe itself can be divided into two stages. The robes of the banner girls in the first stage were slim, long and narrow, with small cuffs and simple decorations. The reason was that the bannermen were heavy on horseback riding and shooting, and the robes they wore had to fit in with their lifestyle. In the second stage, the robes of flag girls became wider and fatter, and the decorations became extremely complicated. This was mainly because the world was at peace, the lives of the banner people were stable and tended to be luxurious, and the exchanges and integration between flag girls and Han women's costumes were increasing. reason.
Broadly speaking, cheongsam has experienced the development of three periods: the cheongsam of the Qing Dynasty, the new cheongsam of the Republic of China, and the contemporary fashion cheongsam. Among them, the new cheongsam of the Republic of China is the most typical and important. In a narrow sense, cheongsam refers to the cheongsam of the Republic of China, and of course it can also include the cheongsam that basically maintained the characteristics of the cheongsam of the Republic of China after the Republic of China. Although the term cheongsam was occasionally used in Qing Dynasty documents, it was not until the Republic of China that it was widely and frequently used.
The cheongsam of the Republic of China also experienced two stages: classic cheongsam (basic style) and improved cheongsam. The first stage focused on traditional straight-body tailoring, and began to introduce Western darts and other techniques to make the cheongsam more fitting. The second stage introduced more Western tailoring methods, such as sleeves, shoulder pads and zippers.
There are four main differences between the cheongsam of the Qing Dynasty and the new cheongsam of the Republic of China.
The first is that the cheongsam of the flag girl does not reveal the body shape, especially in the later period, it is wide and straight; the cheongsam of the Republic of China is darted and narrowed at the waist to express the posture. This is related to the ideological concepts of the two periods. Ancient Chinese clothing, including the bannermen's robes of the Qing Dynasty, emphasized text but ignored human nature, and emphasized clothing patterns instead of human body curves. China has always disapproved of women who were too eye-catching, and they also held a very reserved attitude towards the human body. For ancient beauties, the face was the main thing. Beauties with slim shoulders, flat chests, thin waists, narrow hips, and thin bodies were buried under layers of clothes. Compared with the costumes of the Central Plains in previous dynasties, the robe of the bannermen is more suitable for the body, but it only lengthens the figures of the banner girls, but still hides their bodies. The cheongsam of the Republic of China was greatly influenced by Western humanistic ideas. Western clothing fully expresses and even exaggerates the lines of the human body, often resorting to extreme methods. What matters here is the person, and the role of the cheongsam is nothing more than to faithfully outline the contours of the human body against the clouds and the moon.