The cheongsam is everywhere right now — and its return is charged with new meaning

CBC

12-06-2025

In Heather Guo 's vintage cheongsam collection, one stands apart: a red dress thought to be from 1950s Shanghai, embroidered with butterflies and flowers and made just years before China's Cultural Revolution.
"It's like seeing the last glory of [the cheongsam]," said Guo, founder of Hoeng Gong Silk Co, which sells both vintage and contemporary garments. "They were still making cheongsams like they're going to wear it for the next 50 years of their life."
Seen as a symbol of bourgeois decadence, the cheongsam, or qipao, faded from daily life under the rule of Mao Zedong and during the Cultural Revolution. Today, the garment — common at one time and later mostly reserved for weddings, pageants and even uniforms — is finding new life and meaning, and is the source of new debate.
Designers like Vivienne Tam and Huishan Zhang are reimagining the cheongsam with new silhouettes and bringing it back into the conversation.
On TikTok and Instagram, searches for cheongsam and qipao turn up no shortage of posts, with some going full vintage and others mixing in denim and bold accessories.
It's more than just a fleeting trend — it's a reawakening that stitches a traditional garment together with the present.
"There's definitely this idea of revival there, because I think it's becoming something that's both traditional and trending," Guo said. Over the past decade, she's noticed cheongsams and classic Chinese style gaining new prominence in the Chinese community at home and abroad, even amid the outsize influence of Western styles and brands.
According to a 2024 study by the International Textile and Apparel Association, 98 per cent of the Gen-Zers surveyed in the U.S. could recognize the cheongsam. Of five modern styles shown, over half of the participants favoured the one that retained more of the classic details: double slits, a high collar and a dragon motif.
But this revival goes deeper than esthetics. For many, the cheongsam is a reclamation of what once felt too sexy, too ethnic and, at the same time, too old-fashioned. Now, it's being rethreaded as a symbol of pride, self-expression and belonging.
The cheongsam's silhouette is instantly recognizable: high-collared, form-fitting and etched in the Western consciousness thanks to Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love. In the 2000 film, Maggie Cheung wears more than 20 cheongsams, each a nod to 1960s Hong Kong, when the dress was an everyday staple. But the cheongsam's story begins much earlier and takes unexpected twists.
Cheongsam (Cantonese for "long garment") and qipao (Mandarin for "banner robe") are often used interchangeably, but by some accounts, they're actually two distinct styles. The original qipao was a loose A-line robe worn by the Manchus, who ruled during the Qing dynasty, whereas today's cheongsam took shape in 1920s Shanghai, blending Western tailoring with shifting ideas of femininity.
And with that evolution into a form-fitting garment with side slits, it quickly stirred debate. "Some people might say cheongsam was a liberation of the female body at the time, and that's how it started," said East Asian fashion historian Jonathan Lee. "At the same time, there were also other people who were criticizing it because it went against the Chinese values of, like … you shouldn't show too much skin."
After the Chinese Communist Party took power in 1949, the cheongsam fell out of favour in mainland China. But in Hong Kong, where many Shanghainese fled, the dress became part of daily life in the 1950s and '60s, albeit with tighter cuts and shorter hemlines. But starting in the 1960s, locals started favouring Western styles, like jeans and T-shirts, and the cheongsam was soon reserved for special occasions.
Ironically, by the time the cheongsam was less a part of everyday life in the East, it had become fixed in the Western imagination — not as a practical garment, but as visual shorthand for Orientalist fantasies. In films like Daughter of the Dragon and The World of Suzie Wong, it served to objectify Chinese women and was a symbol of exoticism and danger — the hallmark of the "Dragon Lady" and "China Doll" tropes.
Though still something of a relic, the dress turned up on the runways in the '90s and early 2010s, reinterpreted by Anna Sui and Louis Vuitton.
Now, designers and creatives are reclaiming the cheongsam, not just in form, but in meaning too. For Lee — who was born in Canada, but grew up in Hong Kong — its return makes sense. He sees it, in part, as a cultural anchor and a search for identity in a time of social and political flux.
"During the 2010s, in a post-colonial era, when Hong Kongers are trying to figure out who we are and what Hong Kong culture really means, [there was a return to the past]," he said. "The cheongsam is very prominent in our collective memories."
But as the cheongsam resurfaces in the mainstream, it has come with questions around cultural ownership.
The brands Reformation, Urban Outfitters and ASOS have all drawn criticism for using the cheongsam's silhouette and details, like mandarin collars and pankou knot buttons, without acknowledging its cultural roots. Reformation's infamous leopard-print May dress, for example, echoed the cheongsam's esthetic, but made no mention of its name or origins. In 2019, the fast-fashion brand PrettyLittleThing released a cheongsam-inspired collection, a collaboration with the British girl group Little Mix marketed as "the ultimate party-wear looks," further flattening its meaning with a hypersexualized costume.
"Appropriation and appreciation is such a fine line," Lee said. "It's easy to fall into either side." He believes it all depends on context, intent and who is telling the story. "If you're just trying to make money out of it because you think it's exotic or sexy, I think that's appropriation because you're just exoticizing … a Chinese woman's body," Lee said. "On the other hand, if your intention is, for example, teaching people how to make cheongsam in a traditional way or … building a strong sense of community, that is appreciation."
Julie Liu, founder of the modern cheongsam brand Qipology, said awareness is key. "We've done educational posts on, How come the garment is designed this way? What does the mandarin collar mean? What's the difference between, like, the qipao and the cheongsam?" she said. "I think it's just about how brands educate the client because there's actually a lot of technical stuff involved that a normal consumer might not know."
Liu also advocates for inclusive styling, including mixing and matching qipao-inspired jackets or tops, and not treating the cheongsam as a one-note occasion piece. "Everyone's doing [Instagram] reels celebrating Chinese New Year in cheongsams and Tang jackets," she said. "But I feel like, yeah, Why only during that specific time of the year?"
Apart from the broader reclamation of culture and identity, Lee can imagine a renewed appreciation for the craftsmanship and sustainability often inherent to the garment. He predicted the pendulum will swing from fast and even "super-fast fashion" back to slow fashion. At that point, he thinks people could again come to consider the cheongsam a symbol of luxury.
More than just tradition, the cheongsam, in all its varied forms, speaks to those who live at the intersection of cultures, generations and identities. In Lee's words, it defies a black and white definition: "That in-betweenness may eventually … resonate with a lot of people who also don't feel like they belong anywhere."