By Kellie Schmitt
Shanghai
It had all the markings of a strip show: a room full of ladies shrugging off long overcoats to reveal tight dresses with dangerously high slits. Sparkling silver high heels peeked out from under their hemlines as they mingled.
But this was a gathering of grandmas in a government building, not a seedy strip club. In a gray, boxy auditorium on the outskirts of Shanghai, nearly 100 women gathered to celebrate the qi pao, the sexy, figure-hugging traditional Chinese dress. And there I was, in the fifth row, the lone blond ponytail amid a sea of black tresses.
I was sitting next to Rachel, my husband’s Chinese coworker, who knew about my own red qi pao and invited me to join the club. Rachel had enthusiastically welcomed my attendance, calling and texting me frequently to make sure I’d come. It made me wonder if she felt sorry for me as a lonely foreigner without a steady job. More likely, as a divorcee with a grown daughter, she was excited to focus on something other than her nursing job, and wanted to recruit friends to share in her new hobby.
Qi paos gained popularity in the roaring ’20s when Shanghai was the epicenter of fashion, foreigners and, of course, opium. In this bourgeois era, the traditional Chinese loose fitting dress shifted to a body-hugging, high-collar style designed to accentuate women’s curves and femininity, the mark of a high society glamour gal. But when the Communists took over, the fashion quickly lost favor and a uniform of drab trousers and jackets replaced the dazzling frivolity.
Now, these aging beauties were trying to recapture a piece of that lost era — and the elegance that came with it. [rc]
Click here for more
Kellie Schmitt blogs about China for The Faster Times. Her work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, L.A. Times, Backpacker Magazine and The Economist's Business China. She lives in Shanghai and is working on a collection of essays about women in changing China.
© 2009 World Hum
August 6, 2009
CHINA: The Shanghai Qi Pao Club
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MANHATTAN BEACH, California / World Hum / Travel Stories / August 6, 2009
They gathered to celebrate the sexy, figure-hugging traditional Chinese dress. Kellie Schmitt joined them for a journey into the country's past -- and future.
By Kellie Schmitt
Shanghai
It had all the markings of a strip show: a room full of ladies shrugging off long overcoats to reveal tight dresses with dangerously high slits. Sparkling silver high heels peeked out from under their hemlines as they mingled.
But this was a gathering of grandmas in a government building, not a seedy strip club. In a gray, boxy auditorium on the outskirts of Shanghai, nearly 100 women gathered to celebrate the qi pao, the sexy, figure-hugging traditional Chinese dress. And there I was, in the fifth row, the lone blond ponytail amid a sea of black tresses.
I was sitting next to Rachel, my husband’s Chinese coworker, who knew about my own red qi pao and invited me to join the club. Rachel had enthusiastically welcomed my attendance, calling and texting me frequently to make sure I’d come. It made me wonder if she felt sorry for me as a lonely foreigner without a steady job. More likely, as a divorcee with a grown daughter, she was excited to focus on something other than her nursing job, and wanted to recruit friends to share in her new hobby.
Qi paos gained popularity in the roaring ’20s when Shanghai was the epicenter of fashion, foreigners and, of course, opium. In this bourgeois era, the traditional Chinese loose fitting dress shifted to a body-hugging, high-collar style designed to accentuate women’s curves and femininity, the mark of a high society glamour gal. But when the Communists took over, the fashion quickly lost favor and a uniform of drab trousers and jackets replaced the dazzling frivolity.
Now, these aging beauties were trying to recapture a piece of that lost era — and the elegance that came with it. [rc]
Click here for more
Kellie Schmitt blogs about China for The Faster Times. Her work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, L.A. Times, Backpacker Magazine and The Economist's Business China. She lives in Shanghai and is working on a collection of essays about women in changing China.
© 2009 World Hum
By Kellie Schmitt
Shanghai
It had all the markings of a strip show: a room full of ladies shrugging off long overcoats to reveal tight dresses with dangerously high slits. Sparkling silver high heels peeked out from under their hemlines as they mingled.
But this was a gathering of grandmas in a government building, not a seedy strip club. In a gray, boxy auditorium on the outskirts of Shanghai, nearly 100 women gathered to celebrate the qi pao, the sexy, figure-hugging traditional Chinese dress. And there I was, in the fifth row, the lone blond ponytail amid a sea of black tresses.
I was sitting next to Rachel, my husband’s Chinese coworker, who knew about my own red qi pao and invited me to join the club. Rachel had enthusiastically welcomed my attendance, calling and texting me frequently to make sure I’d come. It made me wonder if she felt sorry for me as a lonely foreigner without a steady job. More likely, as a divorcee with a grown daughter, she was excited to focus on something other than her nursing job, and wanted to recruit friends to share in her new hobby.
Qi paos gained popularity in the roaring ’20s when Shanghai was the epicenter of fashion, foreigners and, of course, opium. In this bourgeois era, the traditional Chinese loose fitting dress shifted to a body-hugging, high-collar style designed to accentuate women’s curves and femininity, the mark of a high society glamour gal. But when the Communists took over, the fashion quickly lost favor and a uniform of drab trousers and jackets replaced the dazzling frivolity.
Now, these aging beauties were trying to recapture a piece of that lost era — and the elegance that came with it. [rc]
Click here for more
Kellie Schmitt blogs about China for The Faster Times. Her work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, L.A. Times, Backpacker Magazine and The Economist's Business China. She lives in Shanghai and is working on a collection of essays about women in changing China.
© 2009 World Hum
