Hong Kong Museum of History – A Century of Fashion: Hong Kong Cheongsam Story

Crazily this exhibition has only run for a short time but if you’re in Hong Kong you can get over and see it at the Hong Kong Museum of History – it ends on the 3rd March. There’s a long review here and a link to the exhibit here. Sorry, to leave it a bit late!

Hong Kong’s cheongsam culture dates back to the 1920s when teachers and students, ladies of prominent families as well as singers, film stars and Chinese opera performers began to wear the dress. In the 1940s, the large number of Shanghai tailors that moved to Hong Kong from the mainland ensured a plentiful supply of cheongsam tailors. With the changes in fashion trends among women in Hong Kong, the cheongsam then became a highly fashionable garment that was in huge demand in the 1950s and 1960s. As the tradition of the cheongsam has been passed down from generation to generation in Hong Kong society, the dress itself has seen a multitude of changes, but it has retained its popularity in the city, where it continues to be worn by many women to important occasions and to provide inspiration to up-and-coming fashion designers.

A Century of Fashion: Hong Kong Cheongsam Story exhibition is not only the opening programme of “Hong Kong Week 2013@Taipei”, it is also the first exhibition brought by our museum to Taiwan. To present this newly curated exhibition to the local audiences, we have come up with this abridged display introducing the transformation that the cheongsam has undergone in Hong Kong from the late Qing dynasty and early Republican period up to the present, while at the same time recounting the development of Hong Kong’s cheongsam industry, the characteristics of cheongsam craftsmanship and fascinating stories of Hong Kong women and their relationship with the cheongsam through different eras.