A Genealogy in Silk: The Lai-Mah Collection

“A Genealogy in Silk” is currently available in pdf format (file size: about 251 mb). We appreciate a contribution of $8.88 to offset the costs of curation, photography, preservation, and research involved in this long-running project.

One immigrant family’s trunk of clothes can tell many stories, both personal and political. This collection of Chinese women’s clothing reflects a period of diaspora and emancipation, telling the story of the evolving position of Chinese women from the founding days of China’s first republic through the rise of the Asian American movement. These garments have been matched to family photographs. Eventually, more than twenty women with similar experiences and life paths have added their garments to this collection.

With the Revolution of 1911, Western values and fashions grew to be admired and emulated in China. As secluded women began to venture outside their homes, they began to choose more tapered, economical clothing. Rare, early 20th-century examples of these evolving garment forms are delicately-colored, narrower versions of Qing dress. In the late 1920s, the Manchu women’s qipao and the scholar’s long gown inspired what is now commonly known as cheungsam (or cheongsam, from the Cantonese). The development of the seductive cheungsam and the cosmopolitan lifestyle that inspired it may surprise those who believe it to be a traditional Chinese garment.

The collection embodies the best of Hong Kong textile design, as created by their wearers in collaboration with expert tailors from impregnated silk gauzes, brocades, printed damasks, imported lace, and velvets. Due to wartime dislocation, the post-war political climate, and acculturation, Susan Mah created her own Chinese American cheungsam, incorporating American novelty prints, rayon, upholstery trims, and construction featuring shoulder pads, snaps, and zippers.