Research On The Structure Of Qipao In Three Historical Periods

Qipao is the national dress for people in China and even Chinese people all over the world. It is not only a symbol of Chinese traditional culture, but also a symbol of soft power of Chinese which are rising among the world's nationalities. There is no complete and academic theoretical construction for such a classic and revolutionary national dress which is the landmark of the modern civilization. The reason why the Qipao has become a classic is that it has experienced three stages of metamorphosis which are respectively are the classical period before the middle of 1920s, the interim period during the middle of 1920s and early period of 1950s and the forming period from early period of 1950s to the end of 1970s. But the current research results can not be supported by conclusive evidence and the most important thing is that there are no literature study, archaeological specimen and textual research which will are mutual evidence to one another; how does it exist in the pattern of multiple unification in the traditional Chinese clothing "cross-type plane structure" and how does it evolves. The structural study of the Qipao is an indispensable theoretical breakthrough for analyzing the phase of history.Study on the Qipao in historiography circle often highlights more on "logics" and less on "empirical analysis", neglecting the structural research, so the situation "history without evidence" is formed. With a large number of samples of Qipao survived nowadays, the pure conclusion of one specific historical dynastic research is still the main stream for the research, which brings uncertainty and controversy for the Qipao dynastic study. Therefore, it is difficult to establish an objective, real and scientific theoretical authority.Based on the dynastic study of Qipao structure, the method of dual textual criticism of specimen is taken. Then the systematic research on information collection, arrangement and structure diagram restoration is carried out for the Qipao specimen of National Costume Museum of Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology and specimens of folk collection. It is also compared with the related literature of Qipao during 1910—1980 and information collected in folk artist interview to explore the historical background of the structural transformation of Qipao, the process of the three-dimensional structure of the western style, the time node and the typical structure. The three periods of Qipao are confirmed by the evidence of reference science, which will be a major breakthrough in the theoretical research and literature construction of Qipao.