Mao suit
The Mao suit ( after Mao Zedong ) in China when Sun Yat-sen suit ( chinese中山装/中山装, Pinyin Zhongshan Zhuang, Zhongshan suit ' ) known to Sun Yat-sen (also known as Sun Zhongshan ), is after the founding of the Republic of China in 1911, Sun introduced suit.
History
At the end of the Chinese empire under the Qing China was increasingly confronted with foreign cultures, which brought the Sino -centric image to falter after the Chinese culture was dominated for a long time by its pioneering role in East Asia. Under especially western influences, the culture changed in the early 20th century strong, were formed as the May Fourth movement strong currents in Chinese society.
The Chinese clothing has undergone many changes during this period: Western suits were worn and taken over women's clothes from abroad. Local warlords contributed both clothes Qing dynasty and Western uniforms.
Western military advisers, including German military, reformed the Chinese army, which resulted in the new army of the Qing Dynasty. Since the original clothes were too impractical for the new types of weapons, uniforms were introduced on the Western model.
The Chinese education also has been reformed along Western lines and both military drill and uniforms found their way into education. Many Chinese students were also in Western countries, in Japan and the Soviet Union and contributed to the influx of foreign values .
In order to give a new face after the fall of the Empire of the Republic, commissioned the first provisional president of the Chinese Republic, Sun Yat -sen ( in China called Sun Zhongshan ), who himself lived a long time in Japan and Western countries, Schneider with creating a new suit. In China, this was as Zhongshan Zhuang known, named after its principal.
In 1923, the suit by the Kuomintang was declared a duty garment of Chinese officials and since 1927, Mao Zedong wore the suit. In 1948 he was accepted at the seizure of power by the followers of the Communist Party.
With the proclamation of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Mao Zedong wore this suit. First he made him popular, so that the suit owes its name to the Western world.
Mao brought by his course politics into daily life, so that even the clothes took on a political task. It never existed dress codes under the communist regime, but withdrew the population by " proletarian art", albeit " bourgeois" Western clothes and the qipao was initially still worn latter. Among other things, for official occasions
At the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, Mao appeared in green uniform, which was then taken on their own by the Red Guards and thus coined the clothing ideal of following time. Western Suits (西服Chinese, Pinyin Xifu, the actual men's suit ) and modern women's clothes were described as " bourgeois " and branded prohibited. To discard the four old values, the Red Guards denounced the clothes took the straps off by force. These were both western clothing as well as traditional clothes from the last empire. Removed garments were shown as trophies and their owners could be penalized. Under the communist influence gender differences were leveled in the clothes, and women to cut their hair short growing.
The suit found its way in everyday life and was worn as well as on special occasions, such as weddings.
Looking for an appropriate clothes for the people in 1956 East German designers were called to assist in the People's Republic.
This clothing dominated the fashion of the 1960s and reached its peak during the Cultural Revolution. Early 1970s was the Mao suit also popular among intellectuals, but by the end of the Cultural Revolution and the confessing of faults under Deng Xiaoping, the importance of the suit declined progressively.
For decades, the suit was before as a symbol of the zeitgeist or the ideology and worn due to political pressure exerted during the Cultural Revolution. In contrast, the majority of Chinese people should this suit neither an expression of identification with the initial policy of the Chinese Communists, nor as an identification with the original values , ideals or identification with the proponents of the Chinese approach to a classless society, view today. Today, the maximum tightening regarded as a kind of politically correct clothing that is at official (political) events, or as an official costume in political leadership circles, worn. The Chinese citizens now wear mostly suits and other Western-style clothing.
Early 1990s, the Mao suit as youth clothing in the course of Neomaoismus became popular again and comes from a kitsch -based consumer- stick view of the heritage of Mao Zedong. These today bears more features of a commercial Transfiguration, in the form of a rain pop culture, rather than traits of a cult leader of Stalinist North Korea or even embossing, as to the days of the Cultural Revolution.
Appearance
In the draft to Sun Yat-sen can be found with the stand-up collar elements of Japanese students uniforms, which are in turn derived from Prussian uniforms, with the outer pockets elements of German military uniforms and also influences local, peasant clothes. The jacket with western trousers was born. As a precursor, also uniforms of Chinese students are seen, which already had similar elements. Reference is made to the orientation of the education on the Western model and an import of styles of Japanese students uniforms accepted since studied at the time, many Chinese in Japan.
Over time, the Mao suit various changes was subjected. Under Mao Zedong standing collar was replaced by a narrow collar and received more elements of peasant clothes, and its worn pants were influenced by traditional pants.
The suit has two sewn-on chest pockets and two side pockets Side sewn. Each breast and side pocket is provided with a flap ( flap ) and can be closed with a button. The collar is narrow with a short folded seam and is perceived by the carrier as constricting. The jacket is tightly closed with five centered buttons to the top of the collar. The emphasis is on symmetry and balance.
The material of the suit is made of cotton or of a mixture with synthetic. There you will find the colors gray, khaki and indigo blue in the suits. It featured these colors despite the uniformity paradoxically a hierarchy in the population out: farmers and workers wore indigo, soldiers of the People's Liberation Army wore khaki and party cadres wore gray.
The people themselves have been made isolated attempts by slight modifications of the suit over time, to break the uniformity.
Importance
During the Mao suit under Sun Yat-sen for the break after the Empire and the new China was, he was under Mao became a symbol of the revolution and a sign of conformity. He was thus a national symbol of the revolution.
He also supported the dissolution of the individual in the collective and work in the danwei, the local work units, and led to the strengthening of national sentiment. It symbolized thereby the revolutionary abstinence and contributed to the abolition of gender differences in, renounced also the consideration of the female body as an object by the bourgeois norms.
The various components are said to have a certain symbolism:
The three cuff of the suit are according to Sun Yat-sen for the three principles of the people,. Four pockets for the rights of the people About the inside pocket of the suit, he says: " It stands for the right to dismissal of corrupt and incompetent politicians. " (Sun Yat-sen ) Alternatively, the bags are based on the four principles of the I Ching and the five buttons of the powers of the Constitution Republic of China.
The description of the blue ants resulted from the Western notion that the Chinese population was in uniform clothing to work. However, the population was not in uniform, but the communist government put the clothes as an important differentiating criterion for functions and classes.
Related garments
A military form of the Mao suit is the ZHIFU (Chinese制服, Uniform ') that can do the bags among other without buttons.
Under Soviet influences the Lenin suit ( chinese列宁 服) was worn, it could be shown with the political loyalty.
Persiflages
The Chinese -born American artist Tseng Kwong Chi Photo photographed is wearing sunglasses and a Mao suit as a tourist attractions ( East meets West).
The sculptor Sui Jianguo (* 1956), claims to be a former member of the Red Guards, in 1997 his series to the Mao suits, in which he put people such as Karl Marx and Jesus Christ began. At the suit in today's time, he said: " The suit has become a consumer product. Man wearing him how to make a Che Guevara poster hangs on the wall. " ( Sui Jianguo )