East Asian fashion in the modern era evolved from revolutionary uniforms and the modern qipao to become a global force in streetwear and avant-garde design.
Modern East Asian clothing, from the early twentieth century to today, moved from national dress and state uniforms to global fashion. In China, the Zhongshan suit became the Mao-era "People's Costume" and stayed standard until the 1980s.1,21 Japan moved from kimono to Western clothes in stages, through wartime national uniforms and monpe and a postwar dressmaking boom.24,26 In Korea, Western clothing overtook the hanbok, which became dress for ceremonies.6 Since the 1980s, Japanese designers, Tokyo street style, and Korean pop culture have made the region a source of fashion for the world.7,9,15
How We Know What People Wore in Modern East Asia
This survey uses the following kinds of evidence:
Surviving garments, such as a Mao suit jacket made in Beijing in 1976,1 a Japanese wartime national uniform,25 and a Mongolian deel of the first half of the century33
Government records, such as Japan's 1940 National Uniform Ordinance and the photo magazine Shashin Shuho, which showed approved wartime clothes and hairstyles, and diaries such as Kiyoshi Kiyosawa's24
Posters, magazines, and street photography, such as the Tokyo magazine FRUiTS, begun in 19979
Museum exhibitions of everyday objects from mainland China21,22
Official sources show what governments wanted, not always what people wore.24
China: From the Zhongshan Suit to Reform-Era Fashion
The Republic (1912–1949)
Shanghai advertising poster, 1930s. Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain.
The early twentieth century brought radical changes to East Asian clothing as nations grappled with modernization and Western influence. In China, the Zhongshan suit (now most commonly known as the Mao suit) emerged as a form of national dress meant to embody modern values and a notion of equality and uniformity in the new Chinese Republic.1 Named after Sun Zhongshan (Sun Yat-sen), it took on military elements during the Republic, such as a turned-down collar and four pockets.1 Chinese men also wore long silk robes, sometimes given Western-style pockets, with Western hats and trousers.18
For women, the qipao (or cheongsam) became an icon of Shanghai glamour. The 1920s form was relatively loose; it became longer and slimmer in the 1930s.31,34 Some historians trace it to the one-piece dress of Manchu women,2,3 but that is one of several disputed accounts of its origin. In 1929 the Republican government's Attire Regulations recognized the qipao as ceremonial dress.31
After 1949, the People's Republic adopted the suit as the national uniform of the people, and it was widely worn until 1976 in colors including grey, mustard yellow, brown, and navy blue.1 According to the Hong Kong Museum of History, attire "no longer signified personal preference but a political attitude."21 Mao Zedong wore a modified Zhongshan suit, and the suit, mostly grey and blue, remained standard until the 1980s as "The People's Costume."21
Zhongshan suit jacket displayed at Ko Cheung Tailor, Yau Ma Tei, Hong Kong, 2022. Photo: Peachyeung316. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
During the Cultural Revolution, Mao received the Red Guards in Tiananmen Square wearing a grass-green army uniform and a red armband, and people followed his example.21 The green military uniform, its undress version, and the military coat became the fashion symbol of revolutionary city youth.22
Reform and Opening After 1978
"Engels never rode in a plane," Deng Xiaoping said in 1978, "and Stalin never wore Dacron." Historians Finnane and Sun argue that clothing both illustrates and blurs the sharp divide usually drawn between the decades before and after reform.23 From 1979 to 1989, a decade a Shanghai exhibition called "imitation," men wore long hair, goggles, flowery pointed-collar shirts, bell-bottoms, and pointed leather shoes.22
Japan: Taishō Modernity, Wartime Dress, and the Postwar Boom
Western Dress Between the Wars
In Japan, the Meiji-era shift toward Western clothing accelerated through the twentieth century.4 Demand for Western clothing rose after the 1923 earthquake, when many victims replaced their clothes with a greater share of Western garments. In the late 1920s some women began to follow Western fashions; in 1927 the appappa, a plain one-piece summer dress, appeared on Tokyo's streets. The 1930s brought the widespread adoption of Western clothing by working men and women in the cities.4
Wartime Dress: National Uniforms and Monpe
On November 1, 1940, an imperial ordinance established a national uniform for men, the kokuminfuku.24,25 Its khaki jacket and trousers were meant to bring civilian and military dress closer together, save clothing materials, and rationalize the double wardrobe of Japanese and Western clothes. Officials and teachers adopted it first, and for a time it spread widely, but it was abandoned after Japan's defeat.25
Standard clothing for women followed in April 1942, in three types that drew on traditional Japanese garments.24 In practice, the women's garment worn most widely was monpe, loose work pants.26 In April 1944 Kiyosawa noted a radio report that 10 percent of women wore monpe, 16 percent national uniforms, and about 10 percent trousers.24
Postwar Japan
After the war, when goods were scarce, women reworked the kimono they had at home into new outfits or monpe. From 1945 through the 1950s, a nationwide dressmaking craze played a decisive role in popularizing Western clothing.26 By the postwar period, most Japanese wore Western-style clothes daily, with the kimono reserved for ceremonies and formal occasions.4,5 Some people still wore kimono every day into the 1970s.5
Young women in furisode on Coming of Age Day, Asakusa, Tokyo, January 14, 2019. Photo: Marc Dalmulder. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.
The word "hanbok" was introduced in the late nineteenth century to distinguish Korean dress from newly arrived Western clothing.6 South Korea followed a trajectory similar to Japan's, with the hanbok gradually shifting from everyday wear to dress for ceremonies, holidays, and weddings over the course of the century.6 Under Japanese rule (1910–1945), "modern boys" and "modern girls" wore modern suits,30 while white clothing became a symbol of resistance.6
A combination of a longer jeogori jacket and a shorter skirt (tongchima) became everyday wear for women until Western clothes replaced it after liberation.28 After the Korean War, relief clothing sped the spread of Western dress, and by the 1960s Western clothing was everyday wear.28
Efforts to revive hanbok as everyday clothing have begun to find some success. The government designated October 21 as Hanbok Day, and a new generation of designers is reinventing hanbok through collaborations with K-pop groups and K-dramas.6
Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Mongolia
After 1949 the qipao remained common in Hong Kong as a uniform for students and waitresses, as a wedding dress, and as pageant costume. It became popular again in the mid-1990s, before the 1997 handover.31 Song Meiling (Madame Chiang Kai-shek) wore the qipao to show her allegiance to the Nationalist cause; a dress of hers made in Taiwan between 1970 and 1983 is now at the V&A.32
In Mongolia, the deel is a long coat with a stand-up collar that fastens on the right.33 The deep fold at the front makes a pocket for a snuff bottle and bowl, within reach while riding.33
Streetwear, K-Fashion, and Global Influence
Harajuku street snap, January 2018. Photo: Dick Thomas Johnson. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.
The late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries saw East Asia emerge as a dominant force in global fashion. Japan led the way: Issey Miyake had shown in Paris since 1973, and in the early 1980s Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons and Yohji Yamamoto astonished the Paris fashion world with deconstructed and asymmetrical garments that challenged Western conventions of beauty and fit.7,8,17 The V&A records that the Comme des Garçons debut caused controversy for its use of black and distressed surfaces.7 Tokyo's street fashion, above all the experimental, colorful styles of the Harajuku district, was documented from 1997 by the influential magazine FRUiTS, while Uniqlo's affordable basics spread to stores worldwide and Muji became known for simple, monotone apparel.9,10,11
Dress by Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Garçons in the exhibition Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2017. Photo: Sarah Stierch. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.
South Korea's K-fashion rose to international prominence alongside the Korean Wave (Hallyu), which began in the late 1990s.15 K-pop idols became style icons whose often gender-neutral styling influenced both street style and high fashion.16 Chinese fashion experienced its own renaissance as designers like Guo Pei and Uma Wang gained global recognition, while a new generation of consumers embraced guochao, a movement celebrating Chinese heritage through contemporary design.12,13,14 The qipao has found new life in this context: designers have reinterpreted it with new materials and structures, and many wearers have reclaimed it as a symbol of pride and self-expression.19,20
Men and Women, City and Countryside
Men's and women's clothing changed at different speeds. In Japan, women adopted Western fashions later than men,4 and the wartime uniform for men won more acceptance than the standard dress for women.24 In wartime Korea, Japanese authorities required each group of women, from schoolgirls to teachers, to wear its own uniform.28
Young farm women in monpe, from the magazine Sōen, October 1952. The second from left wears the "improved work clothing" then promoted, a shirt and monpe of matching cloth; the others wear kasuri kimono over monpe. Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain.
In Japan from the mid-1950s, as people moved from the countryside to the cities, more and more of them wore Western clothes every day.5 In Mongolia today, the deel is festive dress in cities but a basic garment in the countryside.33
Fabrics: Wool, Rationed Cotton, and Synthetics
Across the region, borrowing from the West was selective: in Japan, imported wool muslin was dyed with the traditional yuzen technique and made into kimono.4 Japanese output of serge for Western clothing grew sixteenfold between 1924 and 1934.4
In China, ration coupons were needed from the mid-1950s for fabric and cotton, among other goods.21
In colonial Korea, according to a 2011 study, Koreans were forced to wear dyed clothing of artificial fiber in place of white, while the peninsula's cotton went into Japanese army uniforms.27
In postwar Japan, mass-produced wool kimono were affordable, warm, and washable at home, and cheaper kimono were made in synthetic fibers.5
A Mongolian festive deel is silk; everyday ones are cotton.33
Dress Laws and State Dress Policy
The examples below examine dress policies in Korea:
Korea, 1932: The Japanese colonial authorities' "Colored Clothes Campaign" against white clothing became "oppressive and violent" and met significant resistance.27
Korea, 1937–1945: Wartime rules recommended the tongchima instead of long skirts, and buttons instead of ribbon ties, to save cloth.28 From 1939 male students wore khaki national uniforms, which continued after liberation.29
South Korea, 1960s: Police stopped women on the street to measure the length of their miniskirts.30
South Korea, 1982–1986: Hair rules for students were relaxed in 1982, and from March 2, 1983, middle and high school students were freed from uniforms seen as symbols of conformity and of the colonial legacy. From 1986 principals could require uniforms again, and by 1993, 83 percent of schools did.29
Common Myths About Modern East Asian Clothing
"Everyone in Mao's China wore the same grey suit." The suit came in grey, mustard yellow, brown, and navy blue,1 and in the Cultural Revolution young city people favored green military dress.22
"The qipao is an ancient Chinese dress." The modern dress developed in 1920s Shanghai and became slimmer in the following decade; its early styles were loose-fitting.31,34 Its origins are debated.
"Japan gave up the kimono after the war." Western clothes became daily wear from the mid-1950s, but some people still wore kimono every day until the 1970s.5
"Japanese fashion arrived in Paris all at once in the 1980s." Kenzo Takada showed in Paris in 1970, Miyake in 1973, and Hanae Mori in 1977.17
Trouser suit — Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Garçons, Victoria and Albert Museum (1981 Paris debut; asymmetrical, deconstructed clothes of the 1980s).Return to text (3 references)Reference 1Reference 2Reference 3
Issey Miyake — Praemium Imperiale, Japan Art Association (first Paris collection, 1973).Reference 1
Section 2: Fashion — Modern Japan and France, National Diet Library (Paris debuts of Miyake in 1973 and of Kawakubo and Yamamoto Yohji in 1982).Return to text (2 references)Reference 1Reference 2
Man's robe — Victoria and Albert Museum (changpao, 1900–1930, with a patch pocket copied from Western tailoring; worn with a Western-style trilby and trousers before 1949).Reference 1
Qipao is the New Fashion — China National Silk Museum, Google Arts & Culture (2019 exhibition of designers reinterpreting the qipao).Reference 1
国民服 (Kokuminfuku) — Takaoka City Museum, Cultural Heritage Online, Agency for Cultural Affairs, Japan (men's national uniform, 1940–45: components, aims, ceremonial badge, adoption and abandonment).Return to text (3 references)Reference 1Reference 2Reference 3
교복 (School Uniform) — Korea of Records, National Archives of Korea (1939 national uniforms for boys, 1982 hair liberalization, 1983 uniform liberalization, 1986 reversal, 1993 figure).Return to text (2 references)Reference 1Reference 2
Qipao — Peranakan Museum, National Heritage Board, Singapore (early qipao had loose-fitting silhouettes).Return to text (2 references)Reference 1Reference 2
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