Cheongsam / Qipao

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A Cheongsam dress is a one piece dress for women which is body hugging and its origin is from Shanghai, China. Its Mandarin term is "qipao" was later changed to "cheongsam", a Cantonese term which means "Mandarin gown" in English.

In the early century the "qipao" used to be wide and very loose to cover most parts of the woman's body and to conceal the curves and figure of the wearer revealing only the hands and tip of the toes and the head. It eventually became the adopted clothing of the Chinese women.

But as times and fashion changed this chinese clothing was finally modified and tailored to suit the preferences of the population. It was actually the socialite class of the society who redesigned the traditional qipao into a slender, tight fitting form with a high cut. The modernized style came out to accentuate the figures of the women with modifications in the sleeves and neckline.

Different kinds of fabrics and accessories were introduced creating more variety. The style became popular in Hong Kong when immigrants from Shanghai relocated during the Communist revolution. But due to its restrictive nature and as fashion became influenced by western culture, this chinese clothes are now mainly worn as "formal wear" to important functions.

This chinese dress is commonly seen in beauty pageants as a costume of a contestant and even Chinese airline companies use the qipao as uniform of their flight attendants and ground crew. Even hotels and restaurants staff and servers in western countries wear it as uniform. It is even widely used as a Halloween costume and sometimes worn in the opening ceremonies of some international competitions

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