New Clothing System in the Republic Period

3 min read

In the Republic period, the government, on the basis of the actual situation, drew up a new dress system. The general trend of the women’s dress consisted of two types. One was the ful1-length Manchu attire that may show the curves of female, which was made of white or printed cloth, decorated with laces and flower patterns, or matched with a small waistcoat and silk shawl; and the other was the pattern of a frock and a skirt. In the early Republic period, both business suit and long garmentwith mandarin dress were popular menswear. The Sun Yatsen’s uniform designed by Dr.

Sun Yatsen,”Father of the Chinese democratic revolution”, appeared in 1920s, and gradually became popular in cities.

Influenced by the Western thoughts, these two patterns were mostly worn by officials and intellects in formal occasions so as to appear grave and polite. Dress colors were changed in different seasons. Usually people were in white in the summer, black or other deep colors in the other seasons. Long robe and mandarin dress were still dominant in Chinese society, mainly worn by regular people. The uniform for college students was designed with high collar, three pockets and seven buttons. The style of wearing a sleeveless jacket or a vest over a long robe was also quite popular. Besides, upper jacket and lower trousers or a long or short skirt outside were ordinary dress for the people in the countryside. Women’s wear changed a lot in this period. Some still reserved the Qing style with slanting front and trousers; some followed the Western style with upper jackets and lower skirt.

Girl students mostly wore coat with slanting front, elbow-length sleeves and blacksilk skirts. Ordinary women in the society still wore Manchu attire in their daily In the 1920s, cheongsam began to be spread extensively; its style was almost the same with the Manchu attire in the late Qing dynasty. By the late 1920s, influencedby the Euro-American dress styles, the cheongsam changed a lot. By the early 1930s, the cheongsam became the main dress in people’s daily lives. The alteration was mainly in collar, sleeves and the length. At the beginning, the high collar was quite popular. The higher the collar, the more fashionable the style would be, so that even in summer, thin silk cheongsam was designed with a high collar. Later, the low collar cheongsam became popular; the lower the better, so people began to wearcollarless cheongsam. The same changes also happened to the sleeves. Sometimes, the dress with long sleeves was popular; sometimes, the dress with short sleeves became popular.

As more and more “foreign commodities”entered the Chinese market, the Euro-American dress styles began to be widely accepted in Chinese society, among the upper class in particular; new fashions from Europe and Japan, such as short skirts, underwear, also exerted influence on Chinese women; as a result, more and more females began to imitate. Some American-style simple dresses even appeared. The red pleated skirts with silver laces were popular among the females who liked sport. Brabegan to be worn by Chinese women. The traditional bellyband was gradually replaced.