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Heritage-Cultural Retention
Qipao
Five fundamental elements of qipao
Qipao Anatomy
Images of a mini qipao dress made with plum blossom printed silk. (Image Source: Huamei Hantang Cheongsam official Facebook account, 2019).
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Qipao is traditionally decorated with embroideries. Numerous auspicious patterns of flower, butterflies, bats and characters are often embroidered on the neckline, sleeves, plackets, etc. of the dress as decoration purposes as well as to embed auspicious meanings to the dress [5,6]
Plum blossom is one of the common auspicious patterns adopted for qipao design. plum blossom is the national flower of China, symbolizing resilience as plum blossom bloom vibrantly during the harsh winter [7] Other than that, this type of flower consists of five petals signifying wufu pengshou [5]. In Chinese culture, wufu pengshou has an image of blessing, featuring five bats surrounding peaches in which the Chinese pronunciation of a bat is somewhat similar to Chinese word fu, meaning blessings. Hence five bats represent five blessings and the combination of five bats and peaches are known as happiness and longevity in Chinese culture [5,8].
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A qipao commonly encompasses five fundamental elements as stated below:
Mandarin Collar: It is a type of unfolded, close-fitting, stand-up collar that is wrapped around the neck where the two ends of the collar meet at the centre of the neck as shown in the mini qipao dress images on the left. The height of the collar is usually 4-5cm [1].
Pankous/old flower buttons: Pankou is Chinese traditional knotted buttons for fastening or closure purposes. It is often used for fastening the diagonal chest opening along the right front side of the dress. There are two types of pankous: straight pankous and pankous with floral designs. Straight pankous are used in the images on the left. It usually appears in a series of three on the collar and chest area where one is placed at the bottom centre of the collar and two are used along the front chest opening. Nowadays, traditional knotted buttons are often replaced by zippers or press studs [1].
Large Front/Large Lapel: The frontal closure area of the qipao is known as the large front or large lapel. It is a frontal opening created for closure purpose that is shaped diagonally and is usually enclosed by traditional knotted buttons. A single-sided large front often opens on the right-hand side, opening from the bottom centre of the collar diagonally down right toward the right armpit. There are different variations of fronts, for example, double-sided fronts, single-sided large round front, singled-sided medium long front and single-sided straight slanted front. Single side straight slanted front is applied to the mini qipao dress shown on the left. [1,2]
Edges: Edges are similar to the creation of binding or piping or hem where stripes of fabrics are wrapped over the edges of the qipao [3,4].
It can be single-coloured, double-coloured, and presented in narrow, wide or curved edging design [3]. The mini qipao dress on the left consists of single-coloured narrow edging at the bottom of the sleeves, around the top edge of the collar, along with the diagonal opening of the large front at the chest area, and at the bottom of the hem together with the edges of the side split.
Sleeves: Fitted cap sleeves are often created for qipao, yet there are variations of sleeve styles available for qipao design. Traditional and early qipao style is designed with grown-on sleeves in which the garment does not have shoulder seam and the fabric pieces are cut in one-pieces instead of separating the bodice pieces and sleeve pieces [1].
Side split: A split is created in a dress by leaving a certain length of the qipao fabric opens for the split [1].
Large Front/Large Lapel
Side Split
Mandarin Collar
Sleeves
Edging
Pankous/old flower buttons
Materials and equipment used for making qipao
Materials used for making cheongsams include satin, silk, brocade, velvet, lace and cotton [9].
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Qipao has 4 different variations: single layer, double-layers, cotton and leather qipao [10, 6]. They were distinguished by seasonal changes [10].
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(i) Single-layer: without lining, the dress is made of one single layer of fabric [11, 12].
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(ii) Double-layers: with lining, the dress is made of two layers of fabrics [11,12].
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(iii) Cotton: with cotton sewn between the fabrics which were usually worn in the winter to keep warm [11,12].
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(iv) Leather: qipao that is made of leather. Alike cotton qipao, it was often by Chinese women during winter to stay warm [11,12]
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Other than fabric material, fabric paste is a common material employed in qipao-making process.
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Fabric Starch/paste: In the traditional way of making qipao, qipao masters tend to starch the fabric to harden the thin soft fabric as soft materials are considerably difficult to control and manage especially when it come to the creation of qipao elements such as piping and buttons that require delicate and fine finishes. Sizing the fabric is then able to ease qipao master to make qipao and allow those qipao elements to stay in place, glue together and appear firmer and stiffer [13, 14]. Fabric starch is made of low-gluton flour, boiling water and alum [15-17]. Alum is a chemical substance which has high water absorbability that can achieve the desired thickness and consistency for the paste and has an anti-insect effect that is able to prevent insect bites and mildew spots caused using flour [13].
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Qipao Distinctive Equipment:
Powder bag: Powder bag is a bag filled with various colours of powder. The bag is made with double layers and with a cotton thread passes through it to enable the user to pull the thread out of the bag when in use. Once the thread is pulled out of the bag, flick the thread lightly to leave a line of on the fabric simply with a light flick [18,19]
Paste Scraper (for fabric starch/paste): It is the tool used for sizing the fabric [13,19].
Image of a paste scraper placed in a bowl filled with fabric paste (Image Source: Huamei Hantang Cheongsam official Facebook account, 2017).