Shanghai in the 1920s: A Distinctive Vision of Elegance
Between the façades of the Bund, the streets of the former French Concession and the first film studios, Shanghai was creating a modernity of its own. It was a story of encounters, clothing and silhouettes whose elegance continues to inspire us.
At the beginning of the 1920s, Shanghai was a city in the midst of transformation. Ships travelled up the Huangpu, foreign trading houses stood alongside Chinese shops, and grand hotels rose just a few streets away from teahouses. In the liveliest districts, traditional Chinese music could be heard alongside the first jazz hits.
The city attracted merchants, artists, entrepreneurs and people from across China. It looked towards Europe and the United States without abandoning its own traditions. Out of this sometimes contradictory movement emerged a new way of living, and of dressing.
A city shaped by encounters
To understand Shanghai at this time, it helps to look back a few decades.
Following the First Opium War and the Treaty of Nanking in 1842, Shanghai was opened to foreign trade. The French Concession was established in 1849, while the International Settlement developed under British, American and other powers. These territories had their own administrations and enjoyed privileges that limited Chinese authority. They were one of the lasting consequences of the unequal treaties imposed on China.
In the 1920s, this arrangement profoundly shaped the urban landscape. Along the Bund, banks and trading companies displayed their power in grand stone buildings. In the French Concession, tree-lined avenues, villas and gardens gave some neighbourhoods a different character. Elsewhere, shopping streets remained lively with small shops, workshops and markets.
Yet it would be misleading to imagine two separate cities, one Chinese and the other Western. Residents moved between these districts, businesses adapted to diverse customers, and influences crossed paths every day. Shanghai remained a predominantly Chinese city, whose vitality depended largely on its residents, craftspeople and entrepreneurs.
This proximity did not erase inequality or political tension. But it created particular conditions for the emergence of a new urban culture, in which ideas, images and fashions travelled quickly.
When fashion tells the story of its time
Clothing is one of the clearest places to see these transformations.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Western clothing became more widespread in some Chinese urban circles. Suits, blouses, skirts and modern dresses appeared alongside traditional attire. Women, particularly in educated circles and fashionable society, embraced new ways of styling their hair, presenting themselves and choosing their clothes.
This change was not simply a matter of adopting European fashion. Chinese clothing was evolving too. Cuts changed, fabrics diversified, and some traditional details were retained while others were adapted. Shanghai’s tailors and dressmakers contributed to this evolution, responding to new ways of life and to customers who were increasingly attentive to their appearance.
The Chinese dress illustrates this dialogue particularly well. Its construction, collar, fastenings and finishing carry a long history, yet its silhouette can evolve with the tastes of its time. It became a modern garment without losing what makes it instantly recognisable.
It is important to distinguish the early changes of the 1920s from the more fitted silhouette that became established mainly in the 1930s. Shanghai fashion did not emerge overnight: it developed gradually through changing habits, designs and influences.
That is what makes this period so fascinating. Clothing does not merely record an aesthetic change; it also tells the story of a society in transformation.
Hu Die, cinema and new silhouettes
Cinema would give this evolution considerable visibility.
In the 1920s, Shanghai became one of China’s principal centres of film production. Studios multiplied and films reached an ever-wider audience. Actresses became well-known public figures whose hairstyles, clothes and mannerisms were observed far beyond the cinema.
Hu Die, whose name literally means “butterfly”, was one of the notable figures in this story. Born in 1908, she began her career in the mid-1920s and gradually became hugely popular. In 1933, she was voted “Queen of the Cinema” in a poll organised by the newspaper Star Daily.
Her career mirrored that of an industry helping to shape the tastes of its time. Through films, press portraits and promotional photographs, audiences encountered new feminine silhouettes. Clothing became an integral part of actresses’ public image, alongside their hairstyles and the way they carried themselves.
Hu Die is particularly associated with the elegance of Chinese dresses in the 1930s. The designs she wore reflected especially careful cutting and making, with traditional details meeting a more contemporary silhouette. Her fame helped make this elegance an object of admiration in China and abroad.
It is worth remembering that fashion did not travel only from Western capitals to Shanghai. Chinese actresses, Shanghai dressmakers and photographers also created images that travelled and influenced representations of Chinese femininity.
Cinema thus became a showcase for modernity, as well as a way to introduce and renew a clothing tradition.
Rhodia and Rebecca: Chinese-inspired elegance
This is the history we love to revisit in Maison Priam & Lila’s Chinese dresses.
With Rhodia and Rebecca, the aim is neither to reproduce a period outfit exactly nor to reduce this history to a few motifs or a postcard image. What interests us is something deeper: the individuality of a garment with its own codes, the importance given to detail, and its ability to retain its character while passing from one generation to the next.
A Chinese dress has a strong identity. Its construction, collar, lines and finishing all contribute to its elegance. Every element matters, without the need for excess. It is precisely this balance between character and restraint that appeals to us.
Shanghai’s history also reminds us that the most interesting clothes often emerge from encounters. A tradition is not fixed; it continues to live because women and men wear it, transform it and pass it on.
Rhodia and Rebecca reflect this desire to keep an elegance inspired by history alive while offering pieces designed for today.
An elegance that stands the test of time
Shanghai in the 1920s and 1930s remains associated with a particular idea of refinement. Photographs from the period show carefully considered silhouettes, thoughtfully chosen clothes and a city where influences met without always blending together.
Yet behind these images lies much more than an aesthetic. There is political history, social change, trades and craftsmanship, as well as women who helped transform fashion through their choices and their presence in public life.
That is what makes this legacy so alive. The point is not to look back with nostalgia, but to understand what a garment can still say to us today.
At Maison Priam & Lila, we believe in fashion that tells a story, that is not limited to a single season and that keeps its place in family memories. A piece can remind us of an era, a place or an encounter while finding a natural place in the lives of those who wear it.
Perhaps that is where true elegance lies: in the ability to stand the test of time without losing its soul.
Bibliography and sources
- Shanghai Municipal Government, “Intangible Cultural Heritage of Shanghai: Shanghai Qipao (Cheongsam)”. An overview of the evolution of the Chinese dress in Shanghai, its use in the 1920s and changes in its cut during the 1930s. Read the source.
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, “China: Through the Looking Glass”, exhibition texts. An overview of Chinese actresses’ influence on fashion and the role of clothing in representations of Chinese femininity in the twentieth century. Read the source.
- Yu A. Seliverstova, “Evolution in Style of Shanghai Women in the 1920s and 1930s”. A study of changes in women’s appearance, clothing practices and cultural influences in Shanghai. Read the article.
- Sandy Ng, “Gendered by Design: Qipao and Society, 1911–1949”, Costume, vol. 49, no. 1, 2015, pp. 55–74. A study of the relationships between clothing, social status and changes in women’s position in modern China. Read the article.
- “Rediscovering Shanghai modern: Chinese cosmopolitanism and the urban art scene, 1912–1948”, Urban History, Cambridge University Press. A study of Shanghai cosmopolitanism, the concessions and changes in urban cultural life. Read the article.
- ArtCM, “Butterfly Wu: Queen of the Movies”. Biographical information on Hu Die and her contribution to Chinese cinema in the 1920s and 1930s. Read the source.