When the
Manchu ruled
China during the
Qing Dynasty, certain social strata emerged. Among them were the
Banners (
qí), mostly Manchu, who as a group were called
Banner People (
旗人 pinyin:
qí rén). Manchu women typically wore a one-piece dress that retrospectively came to be known as the
qípáo (
旗袍 or
banner gown). The generic term for both the male and the female forms of Manchu dress, essentially similar garments, was
chángpáo (
長袍). The
qipao fitted loosely and hung straight down the body, or flared slightly in an A-line. Under the dynastic laws after 1636, all
Han Chinese in the banner system were forced to wear a
queue and dress in Manchurian
qipao instead of traditional
Han Chinese clothing (剃发易服), under penalty of death (along with the July 1645 edict (the "haircutting order") that forced all adult Han Chinese men to shave the front of their heads and comb the remaining hair into a queue, on pain of death). Until 1911, the changpao was required clothing for Chinese men of a certain class, but Han Chinese women continued to wear loose jacket and trousers, with an overskirt for formal occasions. The
qipao was a new fashion item for Han Chinese women when they started wearing it around 1925.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheongsam
Threaded Mode
