The Racist Baggage of a Pretty Dress
When we think of American fashion, we might think of cowboy hats, jeans, crop tops… all quintessentially American pieces of clothing that each hold a historical or social significance from US history. We usually don’t think of the qipao, a form of Chinese dress developed during the hundreds of dynasties within Chinese history and modernized in 1920s Shanghai.
Yet, in recent years, the qipao has become wildly popular in all areas of American fashion, from runway couture to fast fashion to prom. Beyond a beautiful aesthetic, the qipao’s wild popularity in the United States can be attributed to historic and racist American perceptions of Chinese women that construct and uphold the ultra-sexual connotations associated with the qipao. The subsequent fetishization and reshaping of the qipao in the consumer culture highlights the undermining and creation of an cultural “other” within the globalization of culture.
Over the course of China’s history, the qipao has taken on a meaning far beyond the physical eye can see. After the fall of the last imperial dynasty (Qing), the qipao emerged as a symbol of women’s liberation from traditional gender roles that emphasized modesty and silence. In sharp contrast to the restrictive and many-layered traditional robes of the past, the qipao offered a sleeker silhouette that ushered in a self-assured, independent image of the modern Chinese women. In contemporary China, the qipao embodies Chinese ethnic identity as a whole. Worn by the Chinese First Lady during diplomatic meetings, the general public on special occasions like weddings and birthdays, the qipao now embodies cultural and national pride. In other words, the multiple contexts surrounding the dress make it special to the Chinese people.
On the other side of the globe, the qipao’s holds over Americans shouldn’t come as a surprise either. It’s elegant high collar, intricate knot buttons, and iconic leg slit make up a gorgeous look perfected by Chinese dressmakers over thousands of years. The versatility the design offers also allows the qipao to be worn for a variety of occasions.
Accordingly, we should not be surprised at the speed and depth with which the qipao has dominated American fashion trends. Ralph Lauren, Oscar de la Renta, Urban Outfitters, Forever 21, and more have incorporated or transformed the qipao in their designs. But is there more to this fashionable cultural exchange than the (literal) eye can see?
American fashion and culture prides itself on difference. Fashion is (quite literally) a patchwork of different skills, fabrics, colors, and ideals derived from other cultures. The qipao has a clear Chinese presence; its unique designs creating an “exotic” look. American masses and the designers that cater to them gravitate towards the beautiful, foreign difference the qipao exudes, without knowledge of the dress’ cultural and historical background. This want for difference begs the question: why China and Eastern aesthetics specifically?
American appreciation for “Oriental” elements goes far beyond the physical. From their first interaction with the Chinese — whether it be trade or war — Americans were fascinated by their language, appearance, and style of dress that were so different from the West.
Western attraction to the foreign did not translate positively. The very differences that transfixed Americans allowed them to justify their national and racial superiority. This fascination extended especially to Chinese women, who were traditionally expected to be seen little and heard less by foreigners. While modern China has since greatly evolved from these expectations, the United States engrained them in their racist perception of an entire culture. Americans reconciled their sense of racial superiority with their perception of “mysterious Oriental women” to create sexualized stereotypes of Chinese women in popular media. In other words, the fetishization of Chinese women sexualizes racist Western superiority and uses sexual appreciation as justification for racial and ethnic superiority. These fetishes persist in popular culture, where the US has popularized and maintained an ultra-sexualized image of Chinese women built on modesty and silence.
We begin where stars (and stereotypes) are made. Hollywood.
Americans were first exposed to the qipao on a national scale in the 1960s through cinema, where Chinese (Anna May Wong and Nancy Kwan) and white actresses (Grace Kelly and Elizabeth Taylor) wore the qipao on and off the silver screen.
However, it is important to note that it was not the red-carpet events of box offices that popularized the qipao; it was primarily the way the films portrayed qipao wearing Asian characters. The “Golden Age of Hollywood” created two main portrayals of Chinese women. The Dragon Lady was a powerful, dominant, mysterious Chinese women who weaponized her sexuality to achieve her goals. The Lotus Blossom a submissive, modest, and obedient Chinese woman who was usually saved by (and lovingly devoted to) a handsome white male hero in the end.
Hollywood told its audiences that while Chinese women were physically desirable — able to be shaped into any fantasy you wanted — they were still racially inferior. Whether subtly or obviously, these character setups both perpetuated the image of Chinese women as exotic, sexual, and most importantly, objects. You could desire them, use them, tell them what to do, but never humanize them. They forever existed as “different” and “foreign” figures that satisfied the Western hunger for something new.
As the Dragon Ladies and Lotus Blossoms of the silver screen continued their careers, their “uniform,” the qipao, became synonymous with the racist, sexualized stereotypes of East Asian women. Gradually, the qipao was able to transition from the background of difference into an indicator of it. As put by Hanying Wang in her paper “Portrayals of Chinese Women’s Images in Hollywood Mainstream Films,” “Hollywood utilizes the prop of dressing to portray to the audience that women in the East are different or ‘Other’ from the West, which contributes partially to perpetuate the audience’s stereotypes towards the Eastern women” (Wang). In other words, character setups in popular media developed the inherent sex appeal of the qipao, which was then used it to further highlight racial and ethnic separateness.
It is important to consider the qipao’s legacy from the “Golden Age of Hollywood” in a timeless context. The 60s were the beginning of the extreme power imbalance between American and Chinese people. The costumes and characters visually represented the extreme racial context (white) Americans viewed other ethnicities in, as well as their inability to see depth in the people of color they interact with. Today, the United States is content to profit off and reuse on the lens their forefathers used to view racial “others.” Whether it be in the 60s, 90s, or 2000s, the qipao’s consistent popularity is sustained by 1960s cinema and the American craving for difference.
Americans want to be sexy, exotic, and mysterious without the geisha, Oriental, and Asian. They want to be beautiful without the fetishization and sexual assault that accompanied the dress they wear. American women — especially white women — have the option of wearing the qipao as just a dress. They slip in and out of qipaos easily, unaware of the destruction and reshaping of an entire demographic the dress has undergone.
Chinese Americans are not afforded the same luxury. As Jenny Zhang, a Chinese American, writes in “Blonde Girls in Cheongsams” that she grew up in “… a world that said Chinese culture looked best as an accessory on a white person. In this world, a qipao was a garish costume on me, but a polyester cheongsam mini-dress on a white girl was adorable” (Zhang). Zhang perfectly puts into the words the evolving context surrounding the qipao accompanying its popularity. Americans not only redefined the qipao socially, but also weakened the connection between the Chinese dress and its roots.
How does this disconnect even happen? One could argue that if the main attraction of the qipao is the element of difference, its foreign roots should be especially preserved and publicized. Our answer lies in American consumerism and the dilution of cultural values that results.
Eager to capitalize on cravings for the foreign, the American fashion industry began producing their own qipaos. However, they soon realized that the traditional Chinese elements that make up the dress were the ones that could prevent it from fully taking off with the American public. American qipao designers wanted both the “Oriental” aesthetic and too add more conventionally sexy elements To do so, American consumers “cherry pick” physical and historical elements of the cultural dress to fit US consumerism and standards for sex appeal. Traditional qipao lengths and embroidered patterns of phoenixes and flowers were deemed to “boring” for American fashion. As shown in the ad for a thigh-high, leopard-print qipao, US fashion has tailored the dress to better fit Western standards. In “Are We Really Doing This Whole Cultural Appropriation Thing Again?” Sable Yong explains “That is the pattern and the problem with all these looks actually — the image of [a Westernized qipao] filters this Chinoiserie trend through a [Western]-girl-beauty filter” (Yong). This pattern reveals the sad truth of qipao popularity in the US. We are focused on adorning ourselves with difference, yet we have no regard for where the difference might come from, or what it means originally.
The undermining of the qipao’s origins also goes beyond physical design. The way retailers market and present qipaos to the American public either encourages the offensive stereotypes of Chinese women or disregards the Asian roots of the dress entirely. For instance, the Reformation leopard-print qipao ad description has no mention of the qipao or Chinese influence, despite the collar style, cloth knot buttons, and silhouette being exact elements of the traditional dress. This so called “May Dress” cherry picks the sexuality and physical elements of the qipao and throws away the history that created it.
Moreover, ads for qipaos aren’t marketing the dress/aesthetic, but the ultra-sexualized stereotypes of Chinese women the dresses embody. For example, the name “Chinese Whispers Embroidered Dress” seeks to associate the dress (worn by a white model) with traditional Chinese expectations of silent women. The product description goes even further: the dress is “super mini … this mini dress is the perfect party dress for girls who like to look sexy with their clothes on.” The girl wearing the qipao has her head tilted away from the camera and body open towards the viewer, projecting an air of submissiveness and vulnerability. The model’s closed eyes make her seem as though she is waiting for instruction. A compliant, modest woman that viewers are meant to see as sexual and alluring. A modern-day Lotus Blossom.
Additionally, the model wearing the qipao wears thigh high boots with the dress and is holding a vaguely Asian fan. Chinese looking embroidery decorates the front of the satin dress. Despite the model not showing much skin, consumers are meant to see her (and the dress) in a sexual context. They are meant to understand that the image is sexual not because the model’s arms are bare, but because of the Chinese elements of the clothing.
With this ad in mind, it is important to consider what the fashion industry is really marketing to its customers. It simultaneously uses the Lotus Blossom stereotype to sell the dress and sells the Lotus Blossom stereotype as a costume. The way the “Chinese Whispers” dress — and thousands of others like it — is marketed encourages and profits off the offensive racial and gender stereotypes that stretch back for decades. Advertisements exemplify the presentation of qipao not as a cultural object, but as a physical symbol of the cruelest, most inaccurate parts of Chinese American history.
Proponents of globalization could argue that the cultural exchange allowed the world to see more of the qipao and enriched its traditional values with worldwide ones. And they’re partly right. On a physical level, I would say the qipao has benefited from its popularity in the United States. There is nothing wrong with recognizing the beauty of cultural clothing. Designers all over the world have added their own touches on the qipao, creating a multicultural, unrestricted dress suitable for our interconnected day and age. Objectively, I can point out a myriad of new designs and designers that have flourished with qipao.
On every other level — national, cultural, and social — the qipao has been colonized and violated. As evidenced by the “May Dress” and “Chinese Whispers Embroidered Dress,” there is a significant difference between appreciating an aesthetic and repurposing it entirely to fit Western values. The qipao’s appeal rests largely on the racist and sexist fetishization of a whole demographic, which retailers recognize and continue to encourage in their designs. Using American history and values to perceive the qipao both corrupts the multi-faceted significance of the qipao and continues hurtful, racist stereotypes of a culture. Put differently, the cost of making beautiful, multi-cultural qipaos is the dignity, history, and values of the “other” culture.
When we think of qipaos, we think of beautiful, detailed, and above all, different. We don’t think of the social and sexual connotation of the difference or the racism threaded into the very fabric of the difference. We see a short hemline, a leopard print pattern, and a fun night out. We don’t see an undermining of Chinese culture or the historical mockery of an entire population of women.
I mean, when faced with the trendy exotic elegance and sex appeal of a qipao, who really cares about history?
Works Cited
Wang, Hanying. “Portrayals of Chinese Women’s Images in Hollywood Mainstream Films.” 2012. https://web.uri.edu/iaics/files/07Wang.pdf
Yong, Sable. “Are We Really Doing This Whole Cultural Appropriation Thing Again?” Allure. 5 Aug. 2017, www.allure.com/story/90s-trend-comeback-of-asian-cultural-appropriation-in-fashion-and-beauty.
Zhang, Jenny. “Blonde Girls in Cheongsams.” Racked, Racked, 17 Mar. 2016, www.racked.com/2016/3/17/11246698/shoplifting-malls-nineties-cultural-appropriation.
