Our Qipao Story—From Traditional Made-to-order to Modern Ready-to-wear
04/22/2024 Monday 36-62F Sunny Last summer, I bought two Qipao dresses online, both turned out to be quite disappointing. The first one, described as “linen” on the website, in fact was “linen-like” synthetic fabric; the second one was silk, however, its collar was too high while its underarm button too low. “Perhaps you can make a customized Qipao dress in a tailor’s shop when you go back to Shanghai,” Michael suggested. Yes, I knew there were many Qipao shops in Shanghai, and a good one could be very pricy. Out of curiosity, I searched online, and found that making a Qipao dress from an OK shop would cost from five hundred to several thousand US dollars, excluding fabric; besides, it would take weeks or even months to make one dress depending on their current order schedule. “Well, it doesn’t seem to be a practical idea to order a customized Qipao dress.” I concluded. Since I searched Qipao dress on a Chinese social media, from that day I started to receive various Qipao-related info
