Elegant ladies, including movie starts and noblewomen, had many different ways to wear the cheongsam: a partial Western style with a matching surcoat (an outside coat of rich material). Partial western style meant that the collar and sleeves were tailored according to the western-style fashion's craft such as the lapel, lotus-leaf-like sleeves, flouncing lap and so on.
However, the majority of women preferred to wear the cheongsam with a western-style costume, such as, for example, wearing a cheongsam with a western-style coat, fur coat, or woolen coat and vest outside. Or the women would tie a scarf around the cheongsam or attach fancy decorations to the dress. All of these styles could show the women's brilliant and charming figure.
Neatness was a new trend of the cheongsam in the 1940s, reflected most progressively in summer, when the cheongsam generally was sleeveless, shorter in both length and collar height, and not over-laden with decorations, which made it lighter and more suitable for the body.
At the same time, the slender cheongsam, with a woman's marcel (deep wavy hair), silk stockings, high-heeled shoes, necklaces, earbobs (earrings) and handbags, was the most fashionable attire for women. Later, a kind of improved cheongsam with western tailoring craft developed, which made the cheongsam more fitted and applicable. The cheongsam, then, turned into a Chinese national dress with a unique style.
It can be said that without modern Shanghai's opening to the world or the combination of the Chinese and Occidental cultures, there would be neither the Western-style cheongsam nor the Shanghai-style cheongsam.
An International Fashion Center in Modern Times
In the 1950s and early 1960s, people wore simple dresses, usually blue ot gray, and no make-up. Men wore Zhongshan, Lenin, and student dresses as the main attire, while women mostly wore short Chinese-style coats and skirts with the buttons down the front and narrow sleeves.
In the mid 1960s, the grass-green-color military uniform was very popular among the people, no matter male or female.
Since the reform and opening-up in the 1980s, the national economy has been developing rapidly, enabling people to pay increasingly more attention to their attire and make-up, according to the trend of individualism and fashionableness. Accordingly, Shanghai has again gradually become one of the international fashion centers just like Paris in France and Milan in Italy.
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