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have you seen this video @fuckyeahchinesefashion posted? /post/663223541535211520/history-of-chinese-school-uniform-by-朵朵花林 i love how all the uniforms look and the changes are so fascinating! i thought you would be especially interested in the early 20th century ones :)
Link to the video
I love the concept of an “evolution of school uniforms” video but unfortunately the uniforms presented are quite stereotypical and incorrect when it comes to construction. I guess this is sort of inevitable with these “one hundred years of” videos :/ I’ll break down each of these looks in some detail.
1910s
This one is taken from a famous photograph of Lin Huiyin and her cousins from 1916 so theoretically not much could go wrong, yet they somehow managed to misunderstand the proportions. The robe/shirt in the photograph is longer than that in the video, and the cut is looser and not as tight. I can’t see it clearly in the video but I think their shirt was taken in at the waist with darts, which was not a thing that happened in the 1910s. In the 1910s, flat chest was still the beauty ideal, so busty women would wear breast binders to flatten their chest. This wasn’t even necessary for schoolgirls who haven’t hit puberty yet, so it would be even more sensible to give them flat shirts. Overall the fit should be more roomy and less skin tight. Apart from that, the standing collar is a bit too loose around her neck.
I’m always made uncomfortable by the text in this kind of posts/videos, they love to connect fashion to the grand narrative about national salvation which people back then didn’t remotely think about when designing new clothes. Most of the cultural meanings attached to Republican era fashion were added after the fact.
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Lin Huiyin (far right) and co.
1920s
The 1920s one is especially bad because it’s literally a cheap stereotypical “May Fourth uniform” Halloween costume. The construction is not great; the missing neck area binding, the not at all common decorative buttons, the use of darts, the terrible loose fit of the collar, the lack of curve in the 大襟 dajin (front closure) etc., etc.. What I never understood about this costume is the fact that the black binding they always use just accentuates the lack of neck area binding and makes the giant loose collar look like a pimple on an otherwise smooth shirt. The same problem with the waist darts persists, 1920s clothes were still flat at the chest. Also, 1920s school uniforms were not necessarily blue shirt + black skirt, I don’t know where that perception came from. If you look at photographs or drawings from the period you don’t see a lot of plain blue shirts. Black skirts were pretty common, but the late 20s ones that went with the shirt with flared sleeves often had floral trims and were not strictly plain like it says in the text.
Taobao search result for “May Fourth costume”.
The reference image they showed was the painting 五四运动 “May Fourth Movement” by 周令钊 Zhou Lingzhao from 1951, meaning it wasn’t an original artwork from the 20s and thus not reliable. The art style does not match that of the late 1910s/early 20s, the emphasis on the two women’s breasts was the opposite of the beauty ideal of the 20s, and the inclusion of a woman wearing cheongsam for an image supposed to represent the late 10s/early 20s (this style of cheongsam was popularized ca. 1927) betrays the fact that the artist possessed only very basic knowledge of fashion history. These stereotypical “May Fourth uniform” shirts likely originated in the 50s or 60s, because the use of no neck area binding, the straight instead of angled dajin (which is important but often overlooked), fabric, binding and button choices all resemble 50s Hong Kong style cheongsam more than they do 20s clothing.
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Really reminds me of this 50s cheongsam worn by Li Lihua somehow, though this is infinitely better tailored.
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1919 fashion. You can see how flat their chests are.
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1920 fashion (this is to show you the robe and collar).
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From 1922, this is to show you the skirt.
As to black skirts, they did not become really popular until around 1926. For reference, the May Fourth movement happened in 1919.
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Ensemble ca. 1927.
If you insist that the “May Fourth costume” is accurate and looks identical to 20s clothing, maybe, uh, get your eyes checked please.
1930s
The 1930s one is, again, stereotypical and not very well constructed. The blue color is actually appropriate this time because blue Indanthrene fabrics were more popular in this decade. The cheongsam construction, especially the collar construction, is questionable. This is quite a common problem for modern “Republican era style” cheongsam construction: the hole for the collar is too big, resulting in the buttons being closer to your collarbones than the bottom of your neck and the collar appearing lower than it should. This issue is exacerbated by the weird placement of the buttons: two placed at the very bottom and sitting close to each other. This was not done at any time in the 30s, or any time in the Republican era, really. The collar design itself doesn’t look like anything popular in the 30s either, it’s too rectangular and tall to be late 30s, but too low and saggy for early 30s. The sleeve length is very popular among costume designers and Taobao shops but very rare in the 1930s.
The reference image they used looks like it’s from the 40s, (I love how at the end they named all the reference images except the questionable ones) leading to the incorrect use of a 1940s hairstyle as well. On a tangent here, the text is again slightly cringy, saying something like “the modernized cheongsam brought women into the era of dressing for themselves”. This has two incorrect and problematic implications: 1) that women did not dress for themselves prior to the 1930s 2) women needed to have freedom of dress “delivered” to them through a specific garment, rather than simply a change of mindset.
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Early 30s Indanthrene cheongsam (Indanthrene came in many shades of blue, purple and red).
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1930s students in floor length cheongsam. See how well fitted their collars are!! And they all have either straight bobs or side parted short finger waves, not pinned back brush out curls.
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1940s cheongsam, as featured in the reference image.
1940s
This one is fairly ok, though it’s specifically sportswear and probably wouldn’t be worn inside classrooms or for non sports activities.
1950s
This one is a wild ride so brace yourselves. She got the red scarf and braided hair correct, I’ll give her that, but the rest of the outfit... I’ve never seen a single photo of a schoolgirl who dressed like this, let’s just put it this way. The common outfit for urban schoolgirls and students in the 1950s was the combination of a white blouse and a swing skirt/pair of wide legged pants, often with the blouse tucked into the skirt/pants. Pinafores could also be worn instead of skirts. For country girls, aoku outfits were more common (they always have been throughout the 20th century), though they certainly did not look like what is shown in the video. The most common shoes were black mary jane flats with white bobby socks underneath, as well as other Western construction shoes popular in the 1950s. To be fair, children and teenagers’ clothing did not change much from the 1930s to the 1950s at all, they remained cute and frilly Western construction clothes. She should look more like Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday than whatever this is supposed to be. The color scheme and fabrics are really a choice...
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Artwork from 1963 but the 50s was similar; children’s clothing didn’t change much from the 30s to the 70s. Generally, the younger you are, the shorter your skirt is allowed to be.
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1955 poster showing a girl in blouse and pinafore.
In case you’re wondering if these are super romanticized I have some photographs as well:
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1956 photograph. This is a group of university students but still, you see the blouse and skirt/pants.
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1959, school children heading to the pool.
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Workers on a day off.
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Some 50s school children.
There are also photos from other Eastern Bloc countries to corroborate:
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Czech pioneer uniform, 1950.
There is this misconception that after the establishment of the PRC everyone just wore “plain and utilitarian clothes” therefore it is ok to use modern “plain and utilitarian clothes” for 1950s reconstruction. 1950s utilitarian clothes were, first and foremost, 1950s clothes, before they were utilitarian, and they used construction techniques and silhouettes very specific to that era. It’s kind of weird how I even have to point this out. Though now that I think about it, 1950s Chinese children’s blouses still occasionally used 1940s sewing techniques, like the gathered yokes and puffy sleeves.
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40s blouses with gathered yokes and puffy sleeves, accentuating the flat and broad shoulders.
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50s blouses had more of a cap sleeved, smooth shoulder look.
The top featured in the video would make more sense as a 两用衫 liangyongshan (two purpose jacket) than a blouse, since two purpose jackets were usually untailored, hip length and have a turned collar. Though they would be made of thicker materials since they were outerwear and not blouses.
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1954 Artwork showing children in school. The teacher is wearing a two purpose jacket.
The other major problem with this interpretation of 1950s school uniforms is the misconception that red scarves were unique to the communist Pioneers or the PRC in general. Scarves or kerchiefs worn like that were not rare in everyday fashion of the early 20th century to begin with, and red scarves specifically were also commonly associated with militaristic or sporty youth groups at the time, particularly the girl scouts. I mean, the Pioneers were a militaristic adjacent youth group so it makes sense they would also use the red scarf.
This reference image is from the 1920s??? And they look like girl scouts uniforms not regular school uniforms?? Also even if that picture is from the 50s, her outfit looks nothing like it?? I’m so confused😵
All of the results that showed up in my reverse image search of the picture are very suspicious websites so I don’t want to click on them, though I’m pretty sure that is a photograph of two girl scouts from either the 1910s or 20s. This means that the red scarves the two girls are wearing in the photograph are a part of their girl scouts uniform and have nothing to do with the communist Pioneers, which this look is supposed to represent. The outdoorsy top with the drop waist and buttoned pockets, the straight cut and knee length skirt and the hat all point toward girl scouts uniform of previous decades.
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Girl scouts from Ohio, 1924.
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Girl scouts of America (the photo is captioned ca. 1918 but the clothes look more late 20s to me).
I don’t think girl scouts were a thing in China after 1949 anymore, though if they still existed their uniforms would have a silhouette that’s closer to 1940s or 50s fashion, with a more tailored blouse with gathered yokes and puffy sleeves, and an A line skirt.
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Girl scout catalogue 1940.
1960s
Ok so I’m a bit confused by the definition of “school uniform” here. All the previous looks were more or less for kids in school, but then this one jumps to university level. To my knowledge, I don’t think any children in school wore this uniform. The iconic red rectangular patches are also missing at the collar.
This is where my knowledge ends so I’ll stop here. Not gonna lie I lost a fair amount of braincells watching the video and reading the captions... I hope you enjoyed this post as that will make the sacrifice worth it. I thing I loved the most about this video was the background music, which made it sound quite comical and like a satirical video.