Workers' Clothes and Farmers' Clothes

The People's Republic of China was founded in 1949. Soon after, "capitalist lifestyles" were criticized, and this criticism extended to Western clothes. Western-style clothes, men's leather shoes, cheongsams and high-heeled leather shoes were worn in some of China's coastal (trading) cities and, at the same time, traditional long gowns and Chinese-style trousers were still seen. After the 1950s, although there were no explicit instructions on the types of clothes people were allowed to wear, the political atmosphere of the time rejected Western-style clothes, cheongsams, long gowns and traditional jackets. Work clothing was popular in cities - common outfits included a pair of work trousers or dungarees, a work hat with a round top and brim, a pair of cloth shoes with rubber soles or mid-height rubber boots, an apron, over-sleeves, and a small white towel tied around the collar. Farmers typically wore a fleecy towel wrapped around the head, a felt, straw or bamboo hat on the head, a Chinese-style lined short gown with loops and buttons down the front, a pair of loose trousers, and square-opening black shoes made of cloth, with cloth soles. The clothing worn by laborers became the dominant fashion. There were few changes to these clothes over time and those that did take place were very minor, e.g. jackets acquired small open collars and patch pockets. Women in cities wore cotton-padded coats of colored cloth and blue and grey overcoats. During festivals, bright red and light green silk bands were tied around the waist and a silk band was held in each hand during the northern Shaanxi yangko dance. Images of dancers wafting silk bands became very popular all over the country.

An obvious trend for uniforms emerged, and the popularity of the "Lenin suit" and cotton-padded coats of colored cloth was universal. In the 1950s and 1960s China had close relations with the (then) Soviet Union, and men wore peaked caps (Soviet workers' hats) and women wore Lenin suits. The Lenin suit was a double-breasted twill jacket with a Western-style collar. Some Lenin jackets had a cloth waistband of the same color, and there was a hidden slanted pocket below the middle on each side of the chest. But the Lenin suit was not, in fact, a traditional Soviet clothing style - women in Eastern European countries, including the Soviet Union, mostly wore skirt dresses. The Lenin suit represented ethnic revitalization because it symbolized the Revolution. The suit had a novel style and represented progressive ideas, so it became the typical attire of women working in government agencies.

The cotton-padded coat made of colored cloth was another item of clothing symbolic of the worker. This type of coat was originally very common amongst Chinese women, and it has a long history, but in the 1950s the way the coat was worn reflected ideological change. A (mostly red) version of the coat was traditionally the winter coat of young girls. Adult women mainly used satin materials of different textures to make these coats, and poor urban and rural women used light-colored cotton cloth. However, because satin materials with traditional characteristics were regarded as having strong feudal ties, professional women and schoolgirls rejected satin and adopted colored cloth for their coats - to demonstrate that they identified with the political aspirations of workers and farmers.

In order to maintain a progressive image, but also to prevent the cotton-padded coat from getting dirty, the wearer usually put a single-layer overall on top of the coat.

After the mid-1960s, with the deterioration of Sino-Soviet relations, women wore "welcoming suits" instead of Lenin suits. The jacket of a welcoming suit had an overturned collar and five buttons, and was similar to the Chinese tunic suits worn by men. The welcoming suit was quite common from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s but gradually fell out of style beyond this period -although middle-aged and old women continued to wear it till the mid-and late 1990s.

No matter how the style of cotton-padded coats changed, the overcoats that covered them were mostly blue and grey, with a few of brown and black, but none used other mixtures of colors. A fashion then developed for the cotton-padded coat to be made a little taller or longer than the overcoat at the collar, cuffs and hem, so that splashes of bright color could be seen.

The clothing worn in China after 1949 is representative of an extraordinary change in society, similar to the way the "Sans-culottes" (people without knee breeches) of the French Revolution signified their identification with common people by wearing versions of their clothes. The new Republic of China promoted the "short clothes" of workers and peasants, and so these once lowly items moved to occupy the center-stage - clothing became culture.