The Zhongshan suit
A witness to China’s modernisation
There is perhaps no equivalent of the western business suit that is so imbued with political symbolism as the Zhongshan suit. Known colloquially as the “Mao suit” outside China, it is notorious for conjuring images of communism, the Cold War and the Orient.
Striking similarities (in both over- and undertones) can be drawn between the Zhongshan suit and the Nehru jacket, the Stalin tunic, the safari jacket, the shirt jacket, the work jacket or military uniforms such as the Russian “French” tunic, the German Waffenrock, the British Service Dress, and the Japanese cadet uniform. However, what makes the Zhongshan suit unique is its distinct political overtones and historical context.
The Zhongshan suit (Chinese: 中山裝; pinyin: Zhōngshān zhuāng) is a tailored suit resembling a service dress uniform. It is characterised by a single-breasted jacket consisting of a stand-and-fall collar and four flapped patch pockets across the chest and sides, and matching straight trousers. It is customarily worn as an alternative to the western suit and, as such, can be paired with any accessory appropriate for the latter, with one exception — the necktie.
It was designed by and named after the Chinese republican leader Dr Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925), more commonly known as Sun Zhongshan (Chinese: 孫中山) in Chinese. In 1929, it was made part of the mandatory dress code of the Chinese civil service. Between the 1920s and the 50s, it grew further in popularity to become an integral component of civilian and official attire. In the 1960s and 70s, it was made famous internationally by the former Chairman Mao Zedong, who is the suit’s namesake outside of China.
Sun Yat-sen and the Revolution of 1911
Sun Yat-sen was the son of a tailor, born in 1866 in the southern Chinese province of Canton (modern Guangdong). He spent his formative years in Hawaii, before moving to Hong Kong to study medicine under Christian missionary John G Kerr at the University of Hong Kong. Sun converted to Christianity and was baptised in 1884.
By the late 19th century, China was a decaying empire, suffering humiliation at the hands of foreign colonial powers and despotic rule by the Manchu Qing dynasty. Believing in saving China and emboldened by a newfound faith in Christianity, Sun left Hong Kong for Hawaii, where he founded the Xingzhonghui (Chinese: 興中會; English: Revive China Society). After a botched uprising, he took refuge in Japan. It was there that Sun began to use the penname Zhongshan (Chinese: 中山), which is the Chinese pronunciation of his Japanese pseudonym Nakayama, given to him by his benefactors in Japan.
In 1905, Sun founded the Tongmenghui (Chinese: 中國同盟會; English: Chinese Revolutionary Alliance), a secret society dedicated to instigating full-scale revolution in China. In 1911, a mutiny in Wuchang sparked the momentous Xinhai Revolution, uniting the southern provinces in independence and founding the National Assembly in 1912. Sun was elected Provisional President of the Republic of China.
However, northern China remained under Imperial control, albeit nominally. In reality, power was divided between factional warlords, the most powerful of which was Yuan Shikai, commander of the Beiyang Army. As Sun’s revolutionary government had no army of its own, unification of the northern provinces could not be made without winning Yuan on side. Therefore, a quid pro quo agreement was reached under which Yuan would arrange for the child Emperor’s abdication in exchange for the presidency. Upon assuming office, Yuan subsequently dissolved the National Assembly and awarded himself sweeping autocratic powers, even proclaiming himself Emperor of China in 1915.
In 1912, members of the Tongmenghui established the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) and elected Sun as the first party chairman. In 1923 the Nationalists, together with the newly-formed Chinese Communists, embarked on a second revolution. However, in January 1925, Sun succumbed to gallbladder cancer at the age of 58.
The Nationalists and Communists continued to cooperate against the warlords until 1927, when Chiang Kai-shek, Sun’s successor, purged the Communists in the April 12 Coup. The subsequent civil war would draw out over two decades, with brief glimpses of cooperation to face the Japanese invasion. The war reached a stalemate in 1949, when the Nationalists were forced to retreat to the island of Taiwan, and the Communists establishing the People’s Republic of China in mainland China. To this day, no official armistice or peace treaty has been signed.
Origins of the suit
Traditional Chinese clothing
During the Qing dynasty, various cultural aspects of the Manchu people were imposed upon the Han Chinese majority. This was most recognisable by the iconic queue hairstyle, but also took the form of clothing. By the 1910s, the prevailing forms of dress for the Chinese gentry included the manshi (Manchu-style) changshan and magua. The changshan was a body-length robe, worn with or without the magua, a jacket cut above the hip.
The overthrow of the Qing dynasty was supposed to end China’s subjugation to western imperialism. However, the failure of the first Republic drew scholars, writers and politicians to be disillusioned with traditional Chinese culture. As such, those who identified with the Chinese enlightenment movement in the 1910s and 20s began to abandon traditional forms of dress in favour of alternatives. These included Western styles such as the frock coat ensemble and the lounge suit, as well as Han Chinese styles such as the tangzhuang (translated as the Tang suit or jacket). It is designed to cover the wearer’s backside and is worn with trousers. Now, although the tangzhuang itself is an adaptation of the Manchu magua, it had already been worn for centuries leading up to the 1911 Revolution. However, its use was largely relegated to the Han commoners.
Genesis theories
Several competing stories explain the origins of the Zhongshan suit.
The first, and most probable, theory accounts that Sun designed the suit during his exile in Japan in the 1900s. In one variant of this story, Sun took a used Japanese Army cadet uniform to a Shanghainese tailor to be repurposed as “civilian attire”. This proto-Zhongshan suit featured a jacket with a conventional two-piece back construction, nine buttons closing the front and four expandable flap pockets. A second variant of the theory traces the Zhongshan suit’s origins to the gakuran (Japanese: 学蘭), the Japanese school uniform that was itself inspired by the Prussian Waffenrock.
In another theory, Sun designed the suit in 1921 as Grand Marshal of the Guangzhou military government. He disliked the Manchu changshan and magua commonly worn, as it was cumbersome and symbolic of the ancien régime. However, he also had reservations about the western suit, for it was too removed from Chinese fashion and inaccessible to the common folk, not to mention his own nationalist and anti-imperialist philosophies. Instead, Sun consulted Chinese customs of dress, locally in Canton and in Chinese diaspora communities. He liked the practicality and comfort of the tangzhang, and modified it to include utilitarian features (such as pockets and buttons) inspired by his military background.
In yet another theory, the suit was designed with the help of a Hoa (Chinese–Vietnamese) tailor.
Development of the suit
The original Zhongshan suit resembled service dress uniforms in the early interwar period. As the suit developed in tandem with Sun’s republican revolution, many of its early wearers were graduates of the Whampoa Military Academy, an institution founded by the Nationalists in 1924. As such, the early Zhongshan suit was heavily influenced by the Whampoa uniform, which was itself based off the Japanese uniform.
An unexpected influence on the suit came from the north — the Soviet Union. When western powers refused to support the revolution (seeing greater self-interest in propping up the decaying Qing dynasty), Sun found an unlikely friend in Lenin. Under the guidance of Comintern advisors, the Nationalist Party was reorganised as a militant vanguard party. At the time, the french was a popular tunic worn by Russian soldiers and non-combatants alike. No doubt, the visual similarities between the two garments provided a motif for the solidarity between the Chinese and Soviet revolutionaries.
The first “Zhongshan” suits thus varied between the Japanese, German and Russian styles. These proto-Zhongshan suits would carry a number or all of the following features:
- a belted (optional) jacket;
- either a mandarin or stand-and-fall collar;
- four box-pleated (both normal and inverse), flapped, patch pockets, two of four of which may be expandable;
- a single row of seven buttons down the front;
- sleeves with zero to three buttons on each cuff; and
- a centre vent.
Over the years, the Zhongshan suit was further refined and standardised. Changes included abandoning the mandarin collar in favour of the stand-and-fall collar, removing the box pleats from pockets, reducing the number of buttons in the jacket front from seven to five, and shrinking the pocket sizes.
Design and specifications of the suit
By the 1930s, the jacket’s design had largely stabilised. This final design includes a stand-and-fall collar secured by hooks; a five-button front closure; four flapped and buttoned, flat-front pockets (with three-point flaps covering the chest pockets and straight-edge flaps covering the expandable side pockets); three buttons closing each sleeve cuff; and an unvented back panel constructed from a single, undivided piece of fabric.
As regards fit and construction, the Zhongshan jacket resembles its western counterpart,. Depending on the level of formality, it can be used as an odd jacket, or paired with matching trousers. Most of the time, a white dress shirt should be worn under the jacket, with either a turndown or mandarin collar. If choosing the latter, one should ensure that their mandarin collar is no shorter than a regular turndown collar in the nape (about 4 cm). This is because ideally, a thin but consistent strip of the shirt collar should peak around the neckline to finish the ensemble.
The jacket is always worn fully buttoned, regardless of whether the wearer is standing or seated. Therefore, no necktie is required. As an aside, Zhongshan suits produced by Hongdu (the Chinese government’s official outfitter) are tailored in Savile Row-inspired fashion, with structured shoulders and a suppressed waist, creating a drape in the skirt and an elegant silhouette.
Fabric selection would largely be determined by geographic requirements. In the colder North, heavier wools such as wool gabardine, doeskin and Melton are often used. In the tropical south, cotton and linen are popular. In general, any fabric suitable for a western suit would likewise be suitable for the Zhongshan suit. As regards colour, western suiting conventions are typically followed. Interestingly, black is a popular colour, and does not carry the same connotations (with death and funerals) in the Orient as it does in the West.
Political symbolism and notable appearances
The revolutionary status of the Zhongshan suit was first enshrined by order of the Nationalist government in 1912 that mandated its adoption across the civil service. However, its political overtones were only expounded in a 1928 issue of the Shanghai News.
The paper specified the suit’s defining features as follows:
- The jacket features a stand-and-fall collar, secured by one or two hooks to create a clean finish. This represents the need for ascetic administration of the nation.
- The front of the jacket is closed by five buttons that symbolise the separation of five powers: executive, legislative, judicial, supervisory and examination (also translated as meritocracy).
- The four front pockets represent the four Confucian principles for national construction: Li (禮; ritual propriety), yi (義, justice), lian (廉, integrity) and chi (恥, humility), respectively.
- Each of the four jacket pockets are button-closed with three-point flaps. The shape of these flaps resembles an upside-down Chinese brush rack, paying homage to the political contributions of the intelligentsia to the revolution.
- The three sleeve buttons represent the Three Principles of the People (nationhood, democracy and welfare) on the one hand and the French revolutionary motto (liberté, égalité, fraternité) on the other.
- The back is constructed from a single undivided piece of cloth and features neither a centre seam nor vents. This symbolises aspirations for the peaceful unification of China.
It is interesting to note that some modern scholars dispute the attribution of the Zhongshan suit’s political symbolism (as detailed above) to Sun Yat-sen himself. Some claim they were urban myths perpetuated by Chiang Kai-shek to legitimise his succession to Sun Yat-sen’s legacy.
The suit in China
Between 1928 and 1938, Nationalist government under Chiang issued 48 notices advising officials to adopt the Zhongshan suit. By 1929, the suit was mandated across the civil service, and encouraged in education and on special occasions (such as weddings).
After the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the suit’s association with Sun’s ideas was downplayed as it became the face of proletarian solidarity. Owing to its utilitarian features, it also took off as a convenient work jacket. After Mao announced the Cultural Revolution in 1966, the Zhongshan suit deepened its entrenchment in Chinese society. It supplanted both the business suit and traditional Chinese dress, which were deemed “bourgeois” forms of dress. This lent to the term, the “Zhongshan suit era”, used to describe the early decades of the People’s Republic of China, where the Zhongshan suit was ubiquitous in all spheres of life.
As the Chinese economy opened up in the 1980s, the Zhongshan suit began to fade from civilian and official life, where it was gradually replaced by the business suit. However, Chinese leaders are still accustomed to wear the suit when attending major national events. In the 2016 Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, it was motioned to be named the official national dress of China.
In Nationalist-controlled Taiwan, the Zhongshan suit continued to be worn officially until the late 1970s. With the increase of modern western influence following the economic and democratic reforms in the 1980s, the Zhongshan suit gradually faded out of use in Taiwan as well.
However, there are slight differences between the “Communist”- and “Nationalist”-style Zhongshan suits. For example, Nationalist suits have retained the distinctive three-point pocket flap design. In mainland China, the side points have been rounded and levelled.
The suit outside China
Outside the Sinosphere, the Zhongshan suit also appreciated by a number of prominent Asian communists, most of whom had ties to China. Perhaps the only place in the world where the Zhongshan suit (albeit in an altered form) continues to enjoy widespread popularity is North Korea. North Korean founder Kim Il-sung had been a member of the Communist Party of China and had served on the Chinese front in WWII as both a Commissar in the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army and as a Major in the Soviet Red Army. When not wearing a business suit, Kim was often seen wearing a suit featuring a stand-and-fall collar and four pockets (similar to the Zhongshan suit), with the pockets patchless (similar to the Stalin tunic).
Vietnamese leader Hồ Chí Minh is also known for wearing the Zhongshan suit. He had spent the 1920s polemicizing in communist circles in the Whampoa Military Academy, before fleeing to Hong Kong after the Nationalist purge of April 1927.
The suit in the Chinese military
Throughout modern Chinese history, the Chinese armed forces were outfitted with various iterations of the Zhongshan suit. In the Nationalist era (1925–1948), Nationalist and Communist cadets would both be outfitted in German-style Zhongshan uniforms, stemming from the extensive cooperation between the Nationalist and German Weimar regimes. This consisted of a Waffenrock or Feldbluse in combination with matching trousers and a Bergmütze (ski cap). From 1949 onwards, this was replaced by a mariner’s cap in mainland China (reflecting Soviet influence on the new Communist government).
Perhaps the most iconic of the Zhongshan-style uniforms is the Type 65 Service Dress, which even found its way to the West through the 1960s counterculture movement. In the mid-1960s, Chinese society became increasingly radicalised, and army ranks were eventually abolished by 1965. Peaked caps, insignia and shoulder boards were replaced by an olive-green uniform consisting of a mariner’s cap adorned with a red star and red tabs on the jacket collars. All pockets on the jacket were flapped and patchless. Furthermore, all military personnel were required to wear the same uniform to promote egalitarian in the ranks. The only feature that distinguished officers from soldiers were the number of pockets: officers had four pockets, whereas soldiers had only the two chest pockets. The rationale was that soldiers carried munition belts, whilst officers required pockets to store notebooks.
This uniform, without the red tabs and matching cap, continues to serve as full dress worn by Chinese leaders in their capacity as Chairman of the Central Military Commission.
The “Mao” suit
We finally talk address the “Mao” suit — or rather, the particular style of Zhongshan suit worn by Chairman Mao.
In 1956, fashion designer Tian Atong was commissioned to tailor a bespoke suit for Mao Zedong. Tian remarked that the conventional Zhongshan suit would not compliment the Chairman’s tall stature and broad physique, and sought out to customise its design. This included converging the three-point chest pocket flaps to a single point, with both points on the edges smoothened to a curve; expanding the collar to streamline the face; and lengthening the collar tips to a point.
It is this “Mao edition” of the Zhongshan suit that Mao wears in his portrait overhanging Tiananmen (Chinese: 天安門; English: Gate of Heavenly Peace).
Although black was a popular colour for the Zhongshan suit in China, Mao personally hated it. He was never seen in a black suit, and typically wore greys and blues. As regards accessories, Mao would often wear a grey mariner’s cap when outdoors in the winter months.
The suit in the west: Spy pictures and counterculture
During the western counterculture movement of the 1960s and 1970s, it was common to see leftist intellectuals wearing Zhongshan suits over turtlenecks. There, the suit represented the idealism and anti-establishment sentiments that were vogue.
As much as the Zhongshan suit represented leftist utopianism, it was also used to fixate the dystopian fears of western audiences. During this time, the suit also came into the spotlight in Cold War spy films and subsequent satires. These films often depicted supervillains in Zhongshan-inspired suits. Examples include Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the James Bond franchise and Dr Evil in the Austin Powers series.
Interestingly, the 1973 Bruce Lee film Enter the Dragon subverts this genre by having the main antagonist wear a Norfolk jacket (an English tweed hunting jacket) fully buttoned to the neck with a storm collar.
The “contemporary” Zhongshan suit
With the dwindling popularity of the suit in China, Zhongshan suit manufacturers came under commercial pressure to innovate new designs that cater to changing tastes. As a result, the Zhongshan suit has indeed seen some revival in China today, albeit in a “modernised” form. Since the 1990s, fforts to reintroduce the Zhongshan suit in Chinese business and formal wear has led to significant revisions to the suit’s design. We are therefore compelled to write a few words on the suit’s contemporary iterations.
A popular version combines the Zhongshan suit with elements from the traditional tangzhuang by bringing back the standing mandarin collar and removing the right chest pocket. The remaining pockets are styled similar to the conventional business suit, that is, with patchless, flap pockets. This version of the Zhongshan suit sees a shift away from its political overtones to an expression of Chinese cultural identity. However, the unintended result is a garment that is sometimes identical to the Nehru jacket.
