CHINESE LIFE AND FASHIONS - University of Hawaii LIFE AND FASHIONS By EILEEN CHANG ... The strictest formali7..ation prevailed in "fox leg," "Japanese sword"; then the the matter of

CHINESE LIFE AND FASHIONS

By EILEEN CHANG

Thu anick ~ed. no recommendation to the ladiu among our reader.; JortMm, the t&Ord. "fa&hion." 6p«J/ca Jor ilnlJ. Bul perllap6 we ahotdd mention Jorthll. lHllejit of our male retMkr. t1Iat the following pagu contai" more titan jtut an euayon f08hi01I4. Indeed, they offer an amtuinll pqcloa~ of modem Ohina.

Thi8 u the aulhor'. fir. appuwanu i" our mcrgaft"" II ia CJ plea_re topruelll t6 otlr reader8 8UCh promUinll ~"JU"lI tCJlem a& r~.a "" M iu Ollanll, whowield& the pm 80 well Ilia' Mil. ha& produced noI onlfl thu c1Iarming onick lna al80iu upruaive iUtutratioM.-K.M.

16l1o-18DO

COME and see the Chinese family onthe day when the clothes handeddown for generations are given their

annual 8UJlJ1ingl The dust that hassettled over the strife and strain of liveslived long ago is shaken out and setdancing in the yellow sun. If evermemory has a smell, it is the scent ofcamphor, sweet and cosy like remem­bered happiness, sweet and forlorn likeforgotten sorrow. You walk down thepath between the bamboo poles, flankedon each side by the walls of gorgeoussilks and satins, an excavated corridorin a long-buried house of fashion. Youpress your forehead against the goldembroideries, sun-warmed a moment agobut now cold. The sun has gone downon that slow, smooth, gold­embroidered world.

We find it hard to realize thatless than fifty years ago itseemed a world without end.Imagine the reign of QueenVictoria. prolonged to the lengthof three centuriesI Such wasthe stability, the uniformity,the extreme conventionality ofChina under the Manchus thatgeneration after generation ofwomen clung to the same dressstyle.

260 YEARS OF FORMALIZATION

Almost throughout the ChinDynasty (1644-1911), the clas­sical ensemble was a jacket-

and-trousers combination. In sizeand length the jacket corresponded tothe modem swagger coat. The collarwas very low; huge sleeves and trousersgave a feeling of statuesque repose. The­sleeves measured over two feet in widthbut were later somewhat modified. The­complete costume included not only the"Great Jacket" worn outside but al.sQotlle "Intermediate Jacket" (shown onlyon informal occasions when the GreatJacket was removed), and the tightlyfitting "Small Jacket" worn in bed andusually of some enticing shade, peach or"liquid red." On top of all this camethe "Cloudy-Shouldered Sleeveless Jack­et," so called because of its broadedging in the pattern of stylized curling

clouds, striking against theplain dark ground.

Under those layers of clothing,the ideal Chinese female, petiteand slender, with slopiug shoul­ders and a hollow chest, madeherself pleasantly unobtrusive,one of the most desirable quali­ties in a woman. History shows:that even the more spectacularvirtues-hacking off an arm,for instance, when it was ac­cidentally seen by a stranger inits entirety - though mucheulogized by the vulgar, werenever quite approved by theintelligentsia, for a womanshould not attract too muchattention or get her name

CHu\ESE LIFE A!\D FASHIO;S-S 66

tarnished in the steamy breath of men.~ \l'omen who sought distinction evenby such honorable means were severely cen·sured no mention need be made of thosewho claimed attention by some disturbingdeviation from the accepted mode ofattire.

fur-lined jackets, but in picking the rightjackets one had to refer to the seasonrather than the weather. In early winter"Small Furs" were worn, starting withPersian lamb, proceeding up the scalewith "purple lamb," "pearly lamb,"ermine, squirrel, and then on to the"Intermediate Furs"-"squirrel back,"

The strictest formali7..ation prevailed in "fox leg," "Japanese sword"; then thethe matter of the skirt, worn outaide the "Great Furs"-white fox, blue fox, "west­troWlers on ceremonial occasions. Made ern fox," "black fox," "purple sable"­of either gauze or crepe, it was usually the last named, however', being confinedblack, but on festive days red for the to those with official rank. Men fromwife and pink for the concubine. Of the lower-middle cla.'VJ downwards, muchooune, red was taboo to the widow, who more accustomed to wearing fur thanwu confined to black; but she might, their modem counterpart.s, generally con­after a decent number of years had tented themselves with sheepskin andelapsed since her bereavement, wear "gold-and-silver fox"-an inexpensivelavender or "lake blue," provided that patchwork of the white and yellow partsher panmt8-in-law were still alive. The on the belly and back. The fur linings.narrow p1eat8, numbering stuck out showily half anup to a hundred, Berved as inch or 80 at the cuffs anda time-honored test of the hems.feminine grace. The thor- Young ladies brightenedoo,pbnd took such tiny up the bleak winter months...". when abe walked and with the "Chow Kwuen..-...uwithsuchdignity Hood," named after the...lIItinint that there was historical beauty WangWlible-lJat. a IiliPt, practi- Chow Kwuen, an imperial.u,y iJDperoepf.ible quiver handmaid in the second cen-iDtlielJItJtect~·wh'ereM The Chow Kwuen hoodan~the tury A D She is always

J. nmeteenth-eentury versIon . •......' of.~ ~. pictured on horseback, withhoW8Vll' ~:amPJ tramp, a fur hood and a despondent ex pre.ssion ,tnlDp, a oommotion on her way north to marry the king ofin the delicate folds. E\ren mQre trying the Huns, whom it was China's policy to­..... the bridal skirt, also pleated, and pacify. Her celebrated hood had thered, with innumerable ."hee half an inoh grand simplicity of the modem Eskimo­~ hanging down vertically, each variety which HoUywood made popular.with a little bell attached. The idea W88 But the nineteenth-century Chinese ver­to walk in such a manner t·hat there sion was gay and ahaunl-a bla~k satinwu but a faint tinkle, like that of the cap of the kind worn by men, but fur­beII8 on a distant pagoda in a dying wind. rim~ed, and with a large red pompon onDaMe skirts were not abolished till long top and a pair of pink satin ribbons trail­af&Do the Revolution, in the 1920's, when ing behind, at the ends of which goldgathered akirte with a freer, more billowy seals were sewn which made a beU-likeeffect came into vogue. tinkle.

BULBS FOR FURS

The leaft heterodoxy in the wearing offurs betrayed the parvenu. Since only afew weeks were 888igned to each kind offur, one was very liable to wear furs outof 1!ea8OI1. In an unexpectedly coldOctober it was permissible to wear three

SIG:SIFIC.-\~TDETAILS

This excessive attention to detailscharaoterized the Chinese costume ofthat era. In modem hats and dressesthe detaiL'J always have a point-to bringout the color of the eyes, to create theillusion of a bosom, to lengthen, to

THE XXth CENTURY

1890-1910

DAJlSEL8 IN DISTRESS

It was, of course, not as simple asthat. There was above all the wax andwane in size. The first real change camenear the end of the dynasty, in thethirty-second or thirty-third year of thereign of tbe Emperor Kwang Hsu, wbentho railways, no longer a novelty, beganto playa vital part in Chinese life andthe whims and fancies of high societyin the great commercial porte wereswiftlv introduced into the interior. Thesize ~f clothes dwindled. For a time,the traditional pipings and "railings"still prevailed, but they soon gave wayto the single line of "wick binding,"thiJl and delicate. In periods of politicallmrest and social upheaval-the Renais­sance in Europe, for instance-tigbt-

fitting clothes whicb allowfor quick movement alwayscome into favor. Jerkins infifteenth-century Italy wereso tight that slits bad tobe made at the joints of thebody. Chinese clothes ju.ststopped short of burstingopen in the turbulent dayswhen the Revolution was inthe making. The last em­peror, Pu-yi, reigned foronly three ycars, and bytben the jacket clung likea sheath to the arms andbody. And 8uch were thewonders of Chinese corset­ing that even then we didnot see the realistic pictureof a feminine figure, butrather the disembodied con­ception, one of Byzan­tine severity and Pre­Raphaelite spirituality: slim,

The trouble with old Chinese dressdesigners was that they did not knowthe all-importance of brevity. After all,a woman is not a Gothic oathedral. Andeven with the latter, the diffu.sion ofinterest by the heaping up of distractingdetails has occasioned much oriticism.The history of Chinese fashions consistsalmost exclu.sively of the steady elimina­tion of those details.

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Thi tremendous amassingof bits and bits of interest,this continual digression andreckless iJ'relevancy, this dis­sipation of energy in thingswhich do not matter,marked the attitude towardslifo of the leisurely class ofthe most lcisurely countryin the world. It took asmuch timo and energy toappreciate as to create suchnice distinctions between a.hun<lred lineal designs thatwere almost the same, butnot quite.

The spaciou.s jacket was overloaded'\lith either "three pipings, three bind­ings," or "five pipings, five bindings,"or "seven pipings, seven bindings." Se­quins sparkled at the hem and tbeflapped-over opening in patterns of orchid,()hrysanthemum, or plum blossom. Themiddle of the sleeve, at somedistance from the bindings, featureda special kind ,of trimming boughtin rolls a,bout seveninches wide, caUed the"railings." It consisted ofembroidered silk "ith holescut out to form the charac-ters "blessing" and "lon­gevity."

shorten, to call attention to the waist,to annihilate the hips, etc. The details'Of old Chinese clothes, however, wereastonishingly pointless. They werepurely decorative, and sometimes rather'Obscurely so. No artist could, for in­.stance, have hoped for anyone to noticehis intricate designs on the BOles of wom­en's shoes. except indirectly by theimprints left in the dust. The homemade801es, manufactured from cardboard andpaste and bits of old cloth, had whitestitching on a dark ground, formingchaste, abstract patterns with a Moslemtouch. The edges of the slightly raisedheels were also covered with elaboratedesigns, in fact, there was not a squaremillimeter on the tiny shoe that was notalive "ith some rhythmic motif.

CHINESE LIFE AND FASmONS 61

straight lines flaring a little at theknees, whence issued. tiny trouser legswhich dropped. a timorous hint of eventinier shoes apologetically attached tothe ground. There was something in­finitely pathetio about those pencil-Blimtrousers, and in Chinese poetry the terms"lovely" and "pitiful" were identical.The protective instinct, always strong inmen, was perhaps stimulated by the hardtimes which saw the death of the oldorder and the birth of the new. Women,formerly staid and self-possessed in theirwide garments, now found it to theiradvantage to act the "damsel in dis­tress."

It was also an age of extremes, withthe evils of the governmental and do­mestic systems intensified by decay. Wehad on the one hand the sweeping con­demnation of all that was traditional­nay, all that was Chinese-by the youngintelligentsia, and, on the other hand,iJJcreased oppression by the old and~, who were shocked. into action.B!,8terical controversies raged day inaDiI day, out at home, in the newspapers,in the. ftl8t&urants, at the playhouses.Jb1m the perfumed and powdered leading~••~ of wealthy concubines,oom~ tJtll~..OD ,oontemporary poli­tics to his~y~ve QD the .1Jt;age.

The atmosphere of emotional excess,unprecedented in the history of a landof moderation and good sense, produoeasuch a thing as the "Syoee collar," a tall.stiff collar reachiDg to the level of thenose. A long neok of swanlike gracewas consequently much admired. Thisformidable collar, in addition to theo~ive hair4do~ coUiure of thatperiod, was altogether disproportionate

to the willowy limbsand torso in fashion.The top-heavy, un­balanced. effect wasone of the signs of thetimes.

COIFFURES DIGNIFIEDBUT DULL

The earlier hair-doShaving the forehead (prevalent from the

founding of the dynasty in the middleof the seventeenth century do~ to theclose of the nineteenth, when it first sensedthe coming doom) was clean-cut andmatronly. The hair was gently drawnback, pulled down a little over the earsto cover them, and formed a knot atthe back. The Yangchow style had theknot higher up and the Soochow stylehad it lower down the nape of the neck- Yangchow and Soochow being then theforemost cities, rival centers of wealthand sophistication, roughly equal in posi­tion to Hongkong and Shanghai today.A wide, squarish forehead, a little roundedat the temples to complete the oval out­line of the face, was held to be ideal.Women with irregular hairlines shavedtheir forehead. Instead of razors theyused a cotton thread pulled to hightension. It had no hardening effect onthe hair-roots and left no bluish mark.

Young girls had either plaits or tworound knots of hair done high on thesides of the head. When they married,before they switched over to the grown­up ooiffure, they broadened and height­ened their foreheads for the first timewith the method described above.

The only experiment to temper themonotony, the alarming stateliness, ofsuoh a hair-do was made in the middleof the dynasty. A short fringe aboutone inch long, sticking out almost hori­zontally from the forehead, stayed invogue for years, though we now considerit extremely unflattering. For someobscure reason it was called eel' sky fullof stars."

The general features of this coiffurewere caloulated to give a self-sufficient,'sedentary, preoociously old expressionsymbolical of the Celestial Kingdom, itsconfidence in its own strength, its happyimbecility, its flashes of philosophy andwisdom.

PROFUSION AND CONFUSION

Then oame the great shake-up. Theutmost confusion in the matter of women'shair near the end of the dynasty and thebeginning of the Republic can well beimagined from the account given by

THE XXth CENTURY

Lin Chin-Nan, (#. ... .tJ) , a well-knownnovelist responsible for the large-scaletranslation of popnlar English fictioninto classical Chinese. in his book Sketchesin the Hut of Fear (-!l"'~"k):

''When I was young, a woman's hair­knot was usually in the shape of a Sycee.A little later it was prolonged to theshape of a spoon, called the 'SoochowHair-knot.' Two knots right and leftwere called the Pipa Style. [Pi-pa isa form of guitar.] Wire-matting wastucked inside the 'Castanet Hair-knot' togive it shape. The 'Round Hair-knot'was the most common during this lastdecade, but recently I have seen thegreatest eccentricities. The hair-knottrails so loosely on the back that to holdit up you have to fix some false hairunder it, matted to make two little hardsaucers, which can be obtained in theshope. Another style has the hair twirledover the forehead like spirited serpents;some call that the 'Republican Hair­knot.' Occasionally, I see ladies passingby in carriages who just let their hairdown and tie a false knot at the end ofit-I can't think of what to call that."

Mr. Lin enumerates all the famoushair styles in ancient times. Quite apartfrom the historical value of such a record,it is interesting to find that, as far aswe can guess at the shape of the ancienthair-do's from the picturesque titles, allthe modern creations of Western hair­dressers have been done before, the onlydifference being that the old Chinese hair­knots were solid while the modern puffsand rolls are hollow.

The earliest hair-knots were merelyhair twisted together with nothing to tieit up. A king in about the twelfthcentury B.C. added dangling ornamentsof pearls and jade to make the "Hair-knotwhich Sways at Every Step." ChingHsi Huang, the firstemperor of unitedChina and the builderof the Great Wall,found pleasure in the"Hair - knot w hie hRises above the "Falling off theClouds," very becom- horse"

ing to petite maidens, if we are to believethe writers of modem beauty columns.Ladies at the Han Court designed coiffuresentitled "Welcome Spring," (with aneager forward tilt) and "Two Hearts inOne," "Smoky," "Joy and Melancholy."The Han princesses were the first towea·r wigs. The "Double Hair-knot,"the "Half-turned Hair-knot," the "Hair­turned Hair-knot," the "Hair-knot ofthe Homing Bird," the "Hair-knot ofthe Coming Mood," and the "Hair-knotof Surrender," charmed many an emperorin the Tang palaces.

Aside from those court fashions, thewife of an official dressed her hair in astyle called "Falling off the Horse," witha towering puff tilted on one side andplenty of soft loope flying free (which, bythe way, is very popular in prt'sent-dayShanghai). "Falling off the Horse," invogue in Tang China just before the civilwars and the invasion of the five bar­barian tribes, was reputed to be an illomen, foreshadowing the tragic spectaclesof high-born ladies taken captive byunruly soldiers and borne off strugglingon the chargers. Also fashionable in thecapital city of Chan-An were the "Hair­knot of Homeless Wandering' '(suggestiveof the "wind-blown" bob of some Yfal8ago), the "Hair-knot 8. 180 Japanese," the"Hair-knot of One Hundred Ringlets,"and the "Loose Hair-knot," or the"Hair-knot of Disintegration."

"As for the latest. ha.ir-style," con­cludes Mr. Lin who wrote in the last yearsof the Manchu Dynasty, "that which tiesa false knot at the end of loose-hanginghair, a likely name for it should be the'Hair-knot of Disintegration and Home­less 'Vandering.' What an omen! Thetimes are indeed out-of-joint! I trembleto think of what is to come."

In spite of this welter of fantastichair-do's to choose from, the only uni­versallypopular style in the first decadesof the twentieth century was the thickfringe cut in the shape of the Ohinesecharacter for man (A), a pointed archwhich gave the features underneath amelancholy downward slant, a sicklyprettiness. The heavy fringe and the

CH~.E:SE LIFE .urn FASH10KS 69

1910-1920

tall collar cut across the face left verylittle of the face to be seen. The encasedfeeling typified the suppressed, unhappyatmosphere of the age.

JUTS A.'iD MENTAL EQUll.IBRfUM

(,hinese women do not wear hatsnowadays, but they used to. The hatwas nothing but a black satin bandaround the head. Inthe early Chin period,~the hat·line on the~forehead was round, Change of thoechoing the rounded hat·line

hairline. Later it became pointed to matchthe pointed arch of the fringe. Jewel orna­ments. caUed "Hat Equilibriums" beoausethey were pla<,,ed in the very center ofthe brow, numbered as many as five inthe very beginning. making a singlevertical row down the broad band. Asthe hat altered its shape the jewels wereleft out one by one. Finally there wasonly room for a solitary pearl. TheJ88t we saw of that pearl was also tholast of the hat. Since the Revolution.lD11Jinery baa been a lost art.

It wu DO mere ooincidence that the"Hat Equilibrium" disappeared Bimul­taneoualy with the traditional emphasison balance. Republican zealots foundthe hallowed principle of the goldenmean to have a z:etardina in­fluence on the great amount ofdestruotive and construotivework to be done in the newstate. It is noticeable that inChina even a passionate renun­ciation was delivered with tact.The jewels on women's batsdropped off one at a time, 80 88

to avoid an abntpt break withthe past.

EARLY REPUBLICAN IDEALIS:U

\\ ith the Manchu Empireoverthrown, there followed 1\

period of superficial enlighten­ment. The infancy of theRepublic, was a time whenRousseauistic sentiments weretaken very seriously. Studentsof Western culture had great

faith in "Every Man with a Vote,""Away with Filial Piety:' "FreeLove," etc. Experiments were also madein purely mental love, without muchsuccess. The typical coi1fure of the day-hair parted in the middle to form aknot on each side, a fringe long enoughto cover the eyebrows-had an air ofaffected naivite.

Clothes were never before 80 light andgay. The "Trumpet Sleeve," like theWestern bishop sleeve, only shorter, be­gan tight and ended a little below theelbow, large, breezy, and fluttering. Thejacket reached only to the hipe. Thewaist was beautifully molded. Ladies ofthe upper clas8es wore a gathered skirt,usually black, when they went out, butat home they had on only short pantsending at the knee, which was also wherethe silk stockings ended-very daring andprovocative. A stockinet sash with silkfringes was used to tie up the pants.Naughty ladies had about a foot of ithanging down in front under the jacket.It was declared to be of frankly eroticinten~st.

WESTERS Th'TLUENCE

Much of the inspiration in early Re­publican styles was drawn from theWest. The coUar was at first reduced in

height, then practically cioneaway with. The open collar,round, square, heart-shaped,diamond-shaped; white stockinetscarvC8 for all eeasons; whitesilk stockings with black em­broideries crawling up the ankles:these were taken directly fromEuropean fashions of the day.The indiscriminate importationof things foreign went to Buoh anextent that society girls and pro­fessional beauties wore spectaclesfor ornament, since spectacleswere a sign of modernity.

New China was in a state ofunrest. Warlords came and went,each trailing his own cloud of em­ployees, civil government bodies,measU1'e8 of reform; and Fashiontripped behind on its light,

THE XXth CENTURY

1930'.

Manchu Dynasty hadno break at the waist.A he-man, when chal­lenged, would strike hisbreast and protest thathe was not one who"wore clothes with twosections," that is, hewas no woman. Asmall point perhaps,but women in the1920's were supersen­sitive to immaterialdifferentiations of thissort. Having cheeredthemselves hoarse forthe Western pam­phleteers who cham­pioned the cause oftheir equality withmcn, they lookedaround at humiliating Late 1920'.reality and, souredand angry, were driven to reject theirvery womanhood. A new wave of hard­ened feeling prevailed over the gushinggirlishness of the early Republic. Thefirst long gowns for women were angularand puritanical. Idealism and daintyescapism could not forever maintainthemselves in the face of repeated na­tional disasters. The fashions now had acurt, tightened look. The long gown,first given wide sleeves, soon had long.narrow ones. The "incense-stick bind­ing" was fine and round. Fringes and

bangs went out. Hair W88

pulled back straight to form abun in the "Cooling Coiftu.re."

When Chinese women firstbecame curl-conscious in 1928,they drew their hair back, flatR·nd smooth. made halfheartedlittle waves at the ends, andcompromisingly clipped theminto an imitation bun. Fromthat time on, Chinese coiffuresstrictly followed Westerntrends, though always Jagginga year or two behind.

THE OYNIOAL '30'S

In the 1930's the elbow­length sleeves were cylindrical.

THE DISILLUSIONEDLAT1ll '20'8

The year 1921 saw theadvent of the long gown forwomen. This garment, thenative costume of Manchuwomen, called even now the"Banner Gown" in memoryof the Eight Banners under

1921 which the Manchu hordesinvaded China in the

seventeenth century, had always run sideby side unnoticed with the main currentof Chinese flUlhions. It was stiff andmasculine. Manchu ladies, when theyfirst settled down in China, showed aninclination to switch over to the softer,more alluring Chinese jacket and trousers,but were severely reprimanded by im­perial edicts. The sudden universaladoption of this tribal gown WIUI notcaused by a popular restoration move­ment but by women's desire to copymen. Women's clothes in China fromtime immemorial had been analogous tothe "blouse-and-skirt" institution, whilem~n's clothes since the beginning of the

fantastic toes, trying to cateh up. Thehem of the jacket, square a~ first, becameround, then V-shaped, then hexagonal.The swift changes rendered women'sclothes practically worthless in the pawn­shops. Gone were the days when clotheswere as ageless as jewelry, fetching asready a price on the market.

8WIFT OIlANOE8=MBNTAL A(jfiVlTyl

Quick alterations in style do not neces­sarily denote mental fluidity or readinessto adopt new ideas. Quite the contrary.It may show general inactivity, frustra­tion in other fields of action so that allthe intellectual and artistio energy isforced to flow into the ohannel of olothes.In an age of political disorder, peoplewere powerless to modify existing con­ditions closer to their ideal. All theycould do WIUI to create their own atmos­

phere, with clothes, whichconstitute for most men andall women their immediateenvironment-so We live inour clothes.

CHINESE LIFE AND FABIDONB 6L.

II,.and so was the collar. The tallcollar was revived, this time uglierthan ever because it no longer cutdiagonally across the jawbones as it hadformerly been in order to give a heart­shaped effect to the face. It was nowtubular, pressing the chin hard tomake it double. No excuse could bemade for such a collar except that itacted u an adequate expression of theintellectual sensuality of the '30's-anupright, remote little head, the head ofa goddess, perched on top of a voluptu­ous, free-flowing figure. What sensualitythere was, was reasoned and deliberate.

The military-looking, double-brcasted,belted coot of the West fell in with thestringent mood. Was it the Orientalsense of moderation which softcned it bywearing underneath a. floor-length gownof aleek velveteen, with scandalously longslits up the thighs, revealing the longfloppy pants of the same fabric, edgedwith silver lace, ~l1ggestive of harems?A strange combination it was, symbolicof the educated women of the day, aggres­sive feminists in theory but rapaciouslymaterialistio when it came to the point.

SlllPLInOATION AND TRADITIONAL

REVIVAL

The most important of latest innova­tions were the removal of the sleeves (agradual and infinitely cautious procedure,judging from the number of years it took)and the reduction of both the height of thecollar and the length of the gown. It alladded up to a grand sum of subtraction­the stripping off of all orna­ments, either necessary orunnecessary, to conform toprinciples of the barestfunctionalism.

The newest trends point toan inclination to go back tothe put, in general aspect ifnot in decorative details.Theyherald atraditional re­vival in more serious fields.

Fashion in China is not an in­dustry under the control of a fewgreat fashion houses like Lelong's orSchiaparelli's. Our tailors are help-

less beforethe vast, un­accoun tablestrange wavesof communalfancies whichmake them­selves mani­fest from timeto time.

It is impos­sible to tellwho startsthesefashioM,because theChinese do notgreatly prizeoriginality, re­garding imita­tion as a greatcom pliment, 1942

so that the first one to wear somethingdifferent is invariably l08t among a host ofcopycats. Shanghai attributes ;t,he birthof the recent movement for wide, three­quarter length sleeves to Hongkong, andHongkong, with the shirking of respon­sibility habitual to the Chinese race, laysthe blame on Shanghai.

In pre-Revolution costumes, the indi­vidual was wholly submerged in the form-the form being a subjective represcnta- •tion of the human figure, conventionalizedas always in Oriental art, dictated by asense of line rather than faithfulness to·the original. Post-Revolution clothes alowlyworkedtowards the oppositedirection-the'

subjugation of form by thefigure. Two years ago, whenwe had got to the sleevelessgown, nothing was left of thegown but a molded trunk,with bare arms and neck.Tho return of sleeves in 1941meant theretum of form. Itmarked the turn of the tidetowards anew formalization.Once again, China is stand­ing at the threshold of lifo,more grim and practical thistime, surer of her own mindbecause of the lessons shehas learnt.