Clothing as political expression featured even more prominently in the 1950s in the form of the Mao suit and the Lenin suit uniforms following the Liberation War of 1945. The Lenin suit was a suit worn by Lenin and was only different from the Mao suit in that it was double-breasted and had a waist belt. The Mao suit or Zhong-shan suit was modeled after the Lenin suit; it was designed by Hong Bao tailors, specifically Tian Jia-Dong. The suit was designed to have a widened collar with square corners instead of rounded. It was also enlarged to fit Mao’s shoulders and emphasize his status as a leader. There was also a hole in the top right pocket that would fit a pen to highlight the virtue of education to his people. (Tsui 16) This suit became the characteristic uniform for Mao.
The Chinese people began to follow the way that Mao dressed. Before the Soviet Union and China split at the end of the 1950s, it was common to see women donning the Lenin suit in colors of blue, green, or gray. The suit was a status dress for civilian women. Dressing in the suit was a duty, like putting on a uniform. (Finnane 204) Men frequently wore San Yatsen suits in similar colors.
But in the 1960s, Western suits were coming back into style and women began wearing more colorful dresses. Unfortunately, this did not last.
In 1966, the Cultural Revolution would begin.
It would last 10 years and destroy years of cultural progress. It was a tragedy. Thousands of Chinese youth, Red Guards, would take to the streets and terrorize anyone who they suspected to be traitors to Mao’s regime. They destroyed artifacts and artwork all in the name of Mao. At the same time, 14 million urban youth were sent to the countryside for the Rustication movement. Entrance exams were canceled. Research centers and universities were shut down. Knowledge became a sin. The Chinese people were a world away from the China a decade ago when Mao had designed a suit to hold a pen in order to show the Chinese people that education was a virtue. The amount of destruction and trauma inflicted upon civilians by their own children was unheard of. Women were particularly vulnerable to attacks, especially in regard to sexual violence. Frequently what they wore was subject to criticism. (Tsui 17)
What people wore, how they expressed themselves, would need to be controlled. Western blouses, dresses, and suits were forbidden; they were the symbols of a Western bourgeoise. (Tsui 17) The youth, Mao’s Red Guards, dressed as if for battle with an invisible enemy that surrounded them. The girls wore no make-up, no dresses, and donned military dress. The army uniform was in; to wear the army uniform was to have social power. But it was also one of the hardest articles of clothing to obtain since the army only issued personnel with new uniforms twice a year. Frequently fathers gave their uniforms to their children who would fight over who would get to wear the uniform. (Finnane 237) The only kinds of designs and colors that would adorn the army uniform were symbols of red railway lights, red flags on boat prows, and sunflowers. Wearing those symbols was pledging your allegiance to Mao. (Finnane 229)
The 1970s saw a more normalized routine side of revolutionary life in contrast to the chaos of the late 1960s when the Cultural Revolution first began. The fashion reflected this. Mao suits were exchanged for western-style suits with flat turned down lapels and deep v-necks instead of the button-up style. Shirts that were cut straight and wide or spring and autumn shirts came into fashion. More color started to appear, even floral prints. The green army uniform was no longer in fashion, giving way to the mao suit and western suit in dark-blue jackets and dark-gray jackets paired with trousers in any shade. (Finnane 244) The cadre suit, Sun Yatsen suit, and Lenin suit were all in. These items of clothing were frequently patched up due to the shortage of cloth and money to buy new items of clothing. A common saying during that time goes, “three years new, three years old, stitch and patch it for three years more”. (Finnane 245)
The late 1970s saw an even larger change. Mao died in 1976. The Gang of Four, Mao’s closest supporters during the Cultural Revolution, are arrested and charged with treason for their actions during the Cultural Revolution. They were charged as “counter-revolutionary forces”. In 1978, Deng Xiao-Ping announced his intentions for an Open Door Policy and began trading with the outside world once again. (Tsui 19) Skirts, qipaos, permed hair, and make-up began reappearing for the first time in a decade in Chinese women. Yang Yuan-Loong, a Hong Kong shirt manufacturer, came out of retirement to found the Esquel Group to invest in the Chinese cotton industry in Xinjiang, linking it to international fashion production across the globe. (Finnane 258) In 1979, the Third Plenum of the 11th Central Committee was held and China officially opened its doors. Monsieur Pierre Cardin presented a fashion show in Beijing, introducing the Chinese people to Western fashion.
Then the 1980s. Even more change. Men wore army green coats, fringed scarves, fleecy hats (yanjingrong maozi), and froggies (hamajing aka. sunglasses). It was fashionable to leave the label on the sunglasses’ lenses to show that it was imported. Women began wearing short-tailored jackets and men began wearing the casual blouson style jacket. It seemed as if fashion had picked up right where it was stopped in 1965 due to the Cultural Revolution. Zhengcheng Township (Guangzhou) became the blue jeans capital of China, and the fashion industry was exploding. (Finanne 260-262) But then the student demonstrations in December 1985 sent older people back to the San Yatsuen suits. Like most progress in China, fashion seems to be one step forward and then two steps back.
But while this was happening, the Central College of Arts and Crafts in Beijing created a special class in clothing design in 1981 which became an undergraduate degree in 1982. In 1988, Chen Hongxia set up a fashion design course at Guangzhou University. The first fashion magazines in China were published in 1979 in Beijing. (Finnane 264-266) New degrees, university departments, factories, publications, and models began to foster a fashion environment. It was an environment that was here to stay. This was none the more clearer when Deng Xiao-Ping gave a speech in 1992 in Shenzhen, the new developing city or otherwise known as a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) near Hong Kong, emphasizing that China was to be a market-oriented economic system with a planned social and political system. Fashion and the market economy were here to stay. (Tsui 19)
This mirrors Ba’s stories.
Ba tells me that when he was growing up there were no jeans. There were button-up shirts and khaki trousers. Like Mao, he carried his pens in a pocket. From his stories, I know that through elementary school and middle school, and the first part of high school, Ba was dressed formally. He was in a uniform of his own, wearing clothes that were influenced by a politics so far out of his purview that it might’ve been a different world. But even within Village No. 8 of the Peace and Harmony District, his fashion was deeply influenced by the politics around him.
While Ba was trying to get out of the village, pieces of the outside found him inside the village. Towards the end of high school and college, he “don’t [sic] wear those types of clothes anymore”. He attributes this in his own words to capitalism and westernization. In college, he will wear t-shirts and jeans, the same kinds of clothes his daughter will wear some 30 years later in a country so far out from his village that he could only imagine from his friend’s radio.
Thank you for reading A Family and Country’s History Part 4 by Amanda Chen! Stay tuned for more works by Amanda in the future and read more about her here. The fifth part of A Family and Country’s History is scheduled to be published in the near future.