Mao’s fashion pronouncements always reflected his political mood. He wore an olive brown Chinese jacket and trousers on Oct. 1, 1949, when he declared the founding of the People’s Republic of China. “We Chinese have our own customs,” he reportedly said, rejecting a Western business suit. “Why should we follow others?” With that choice, Mao proclaimed that China, after centuries of domination by foreign powers, was finally standing up.
China was just emerging from 30 years of Maoist isolation when I returned there in 1979. I was born in Guangzhou, but moved with my family as a small child to the British colony of Hong Kong. On that trip back, I was stunned by the very Chineseness of China. The roads were packed with Chinese bicycles–Flying Pigeon and Long Life–and a few Red Flag limousines. Everything was made in China. But people were scrambling to make up for lost time: they were desperate to try new things. There was an innocence to the place, and tremendous beauty.
In stores, the choice was limited, but the numbers and decorations were stunning. Huge shocking-pink peonies, playful pandas and the bright red Chinese double-happiness symbol for newlyweds festooned the plainest of items. Ideological rectitude hadn’t wiped out color, fun and humanity. On the shelves, dozens of flowery, neon thermos flasks were lined up symmetrically, followed by rows of brightly enameled toothbrush mugs. Even the propaganda posters and books were celebrations of strong graphics: great blocks of bright red, black and white, an arm bulging with muscles clutching a red book, the sweep of calligraphy in slogans left over from the Cultural Revolution.
The shops were so crowded. There was a sense of excitement and joy. They were still wearing the green army fatigues and boxy blue suits that symbolized Mao’s ideology. But owners lovingly repaired their frayed Mao jackets with patches reinforced with decorative whorls of stitching–inspired touches of endurance and originality. People were just beginning to shed their fear.
It wouldn’t disappear overnight. Fear first came into fashion with the Anti-Rightist Campaign in 1956. As Communist Party leaders criticized Westernized people for being too bourgeois, the Chinese turned to the safety of the Mao suit. A decade later Mao signaled the start of the Cultural Revolution with another fashion statement. He showed up at his first meeting with the Red Guards in 1966 wearing a green army uniform. That trend would soon be associated with violence, as young people, dressed in green khaki and red armbands, rampaged across the country.
Yet even during the worst days of the Cultural Revolution, people expressed their individuality in tiny, private acts of courage. A red scarf of the Young Pioneers youth group could be tied with extra panache, the ends fashionably curled. Kids would buy army surplus clothes and bleach them yellowish-green to make them look distressed. Girls might wear unlaced white tennis shoes instead of the standard black cloth Mary Janes. The more chic braided their hair loosely, to achieve a kittenish look. The Mao suit became not just a symbol of power but the sign–like a mod Beatles jacket in the West–of a sharp dresser. My friend Tan Dun, now a composer living in New York, told me he traded his brand-new suit, a gift from his father, for his first violin.
Richard Nixon’s visit to China in 1972 was a fashion watershed. When Mao welcomed him into his study, the public saw their leader, still in his uniform, shaking hands with the leader of the Western world–who was dressed in a two-piece, single-breasted pinstripe. Not long after, the gates to outside culture began to swing open, and the Chinese scrambled to catch up with world fashion. It was as if the Chinese had to go through every fashion trend since the ’50s, but cram them all into a few months. There were no rules. Wide-eyed and eager to learn, people just improvised. Color filled the streets. I saw young and old women alike in see-through blouses and skirts. For them, it wasn’t so much sexy as just Western. They wore knee-high stockings with short skirts. For me, this style was so unpretentious and unself-conscious–very inspiring. When I told people I liked what they were wearing, they said, “Oh no, we’re still very backward.”
With Deng Xiaoping’s declaration that to get rich was glorious, fashion took yet another twist. Dressing well became politically correct. Local companies rushed to make cheap copies of Western styles. Men and women permed their hair. Suits with the label sewn on the outside of the sleeve and sunglasses with the UVA stickers still stuck to the lenses–available only with foreign exchange–became status symbols. There were ideological purges, but no one looked back. Even after the crackdown on the student movement in 1989, no one lucky enough to have a pair of blue jeans threw them away.
The passion for fashion has lasted. Even this summer, in the wake of the NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, schoolkids who were asked to boycott American products skipped their Big Macs, but kept their Nike shoes. The young mimic styles on the Internet. Chinese fashion magazines send correspondents to New York and Paris to spot new trends.
And yet something has been lost. Sure, people are much richer today. They have choices and aren’t afraid to make them. Yet that special sense of shared identity, of innocence and vital experimentation that I saw in the 1970s has disappeared. Those gaudy, enameled thermoses, lovingly stitched patches and bold Chinese brands are disappearing along with the Mao suits. Somewhere along the way, the Chinese have lost the courage to be different from the West.
People tell me that some kids are wearing knockoffs of my Mao T shirts, the ones that show him in pigtails and a checkerboard dress. That’s a little sign of rebellion, too. Mao remains a fashion icon. Still, I hope that one day, the Chinese people will develop and find their own styles again.
