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| This doesn't begin to explain why a green gummy bear is celebrating the new year in a qi pao in the same damn game that has nothing to do with the new year or anything. |
This ad is all over my game feed this week. Yes, the animated bear is wearing a qi pao. Why? Some vague fireworks and lantern imagery.
This topic will not leave me alone.
In reading Second Skin, I stumbled on the following:
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| from Marilyn Horn's The Second Skin, 1968 edition . Note 'lady of fashion' captions |
or summarized: "Chinese women had at last achieved a basic style that represented the important values of the period, a costume that was both fashionable and flattering to their racial characteristics." You can read it below, but you get the drift. It's a Western piece of clothing for sexy Asian women. "The values placed on beauty and attractiveness are gradually gaining importance"
Ms Horn writes from where she is (1950-60s) and what she knows (Is a 'lady of fashion' more or less genuine than a Peking lady of similar dress? What is the real difference?). History is written in the west as if the very moment it is written is the pinnacle of all achievement, and we can understand everything through our own perfect cultural lens. That is the methodology of her times. It is the one I was taught in the late 70s. You could rewrite this entire book totally differently today.
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| enbiggened, from previous |
There is an interesting division of thinking about this article of clothing, and this paragraph tipped me as to perhaps why.
"The qipao is a Chinese dress for women. The style is also called cheongsam in Cantonese, and this term has come to be the more widely used one in English, though spelled in several different ways". This is a broad history of the dress as a traditional Chinese garment, from https://fashion-history.lovetoknow.com/clothing-types-styles/qipao
also
with a little more history
As ever, I have buried the lead.
Want to know what a piece of clothing means to people?
Ask them.
You can download it from here
It's fascinating. I am vaguely familiar with the multitude of differences and politics in greater Chinese culture, but most of my pals are Taiwanese, and that's the view I get. It covers this topic better than anything I can write. Yes, it's someone's dissertation. It's well written. It goes deep, it goes long, it's got background and opinions and knowledge. Yes, I am sure she is using her own personal lens to examine the history through, but it's not the same old one I read around here. Methodology is discussed at length; in some respects thus is analogous to Second Skin in discussing the role of clothing in society
On a similar but not the same topic
https://twitter.com/starjumi/status/1285987078593896448
a thread about the ao dai.
Interesting. I particularly bridled up at the mention of footbinding , where 'tightly bound' covers up the real, horrifying process. My eyes were opened to this when I read 'A VISIT FROM THE FOOTBINDER' BY EMILY PRAGER, where the title story is just one of many fascinating bits of clever writing. It was so much worse than simply 'tightly binding' the feet. We are very fond of griping on about the 'torture' endured by corset wearers [all bullshit of course] but this boggled my mind. Look it out if you have never read it. A shocker, but worth it.
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