Steal This Dress!
It’s that good.
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“Cultural appropriation” is not something that Generation Z has invented, but they seem to be the first generation actually buying into it. The idea that using, wearing, or cooking anything inspired by a non-European folk culture is tantamount to imperialism has been around since the 70’s, and it has been used in an attempt to shame everyone from Pablo Picasso, R.I.P., to high school seniors. The former has been chastised for lifting a few pieces of African art, but considering how he countered many of an accusation of theft with his famous maxim: “Good artists copy, great artists steal,” I don’t think he’s rolling in his grave.
“Cultural appropriation” has been hibernating in the academia for decades, but didn’t make any inroads in the mainstream until very recently. The lack of success was not a due to a lack of familiarity. College students in the 90’s, like me, were dutifully introduced to the concept in art, anthropology, and “studies” classes. We rejected it in favor of other worldviews. We favored eclecticism, and would shrug our shoulders when someone mentioned appropriation.
Gen Z, on the other hand, are pressed to explain themselves.
By now most have heard the story. In April, a young lady in Utah tweeted out a picture of herself in a cheongsam (alternatively called qipao, or Mandarin dress for those of us who don’t even try to pronounce the tonal syllables properly), a traditional Chinese attire.
I owed probably a half a dozen of those when I was in my twenties. These stiff-necked, shiny, and brightly-colored form-fitting dresses with intricate floral embroidery and fanciful buttons along the curved closure, were my funky alternative to LBD’s. Each required either a special trip to Chinatown, where any store spaned a whole rainbow of cheongsams, or a dogged dig through vintage boutiques. Most of mine came from vintage boutiques since the prices there were lower, and the music — more to my taste.
When in Chinatown, I’d buy chopsticks to pin up my hair. I didn’t wear them with the Mandarin frocks, though. That would be too much China in a single look, and I always liked to mix things up a bit. My favorite styling of a Mandarin dress was with knee high boots and a certain Hungarian my grandma has for some reason brought from Ukraine.
Was it wrong of me? The 90’s fashion police approved, but would the contemporary Intersectional Committee on Appropriations would?
Trial by the Intersectional Committee on Appropriations
Unlike Keziah Daum, the girl who rocked the prom in her red and gold gown, I never felt the need to say that I dress a certain way to show my appreciation of Chinese culture. I didn’t have that kind of language at my disposal; the language developed as a reaction to the Twitter mob-backed bans issued by the Intersectional Committee on Appropriations.
I wouldn’t have dared asserting such far-going goals like celebrating a culture. I simply liked the feminine, whimsical style, and I will be the first to admit that there was nothing more to it. I am no expert on Confucianism — nor do I need to be in order to wear the dress. It’s no different from partaking in a pleasure of eating or cooking dim sum. To understand Chinese high culture — or any other culture — is a worthy goal, and the one necessary to properly appreciate it, but most people are unwilling and/or unable to achieve it.
Still, to bar the majority of population from engaging with a culture on a more approachable level serves no purpose whatsoever.
Cheongsam is not the most important achievement of Chinese culture, and Chinese culture should not be reduced to it, as Lam and the rest of “cultural appropriation” crew inevitably did. Nevertheless, not every culture creates a dress that functional and iconic, and Chinese people should be rightly proud of themselves.
Daum was forced to defend herself, which she did with much steadfastness and grace, when one Jeremy Lam tweeted out “My culture is not your goddamn prom dress”:
He then followed up with a short history of qipao, which he got mostly wrong. The gown was originally Manchu, not Han, and the modern cheongsam was invented in the 1920’s to resemble body-hugging western dress. It was pioneered by bourgeois women who wanted to have Western-style fun. (So by the history, Daum was re-appropriating something that had been previously appropriated.)
The modern cheongsam has a long history in the West. It became chic, exotic fare here as soon as it was invented in China, and has been a fashion staple of every decade since at least the Midcentury. The pistachio-colored Mandarin dress worn by Grace Kelly to the 1956 Golden Globe awards remains one of the most memorable appearances of the iconic outfit in the West.
Fashion designers have used cheongsam as a source of inspiration, often reworking the style to the point of it being virtually unrecognizable. Most of the designers are not Asian, though there are Asians, too, proudly manipulating Chinese dress patterns to create new silhouettes, and experimenting with Western fabrics and prints.
This is typically done within the context of the Western capitalist fashion market where creativity is still held in the highest regard. Artists are encouraged to seek inspiration anywhere and everywhere, and exchange of ideas and self-expression are rewarded.
The end result is the flourishing of the cheongsam fashion.
While some of the products are highly abstract and unwearable, consumers can easily find practical, flattering pieces. I am not at all convinced that the style would still flourish in Asia had it not been so successful on the global market.
The combination of feminine silhouette and fabric with the asymmetrical closure makes cheongsam fashion iconic. The closure line looks unconventional and gives an exotic flare to the gown. The backstory of its far eastern origin adds to the mysterious, quiet, and clever beauty. Even though the style is relatively new, it looks eternal.
This is where, triggered by the approving usage of the word “exotic” (I’m pretty sure I used plenty of other trigger words), post-Marxists jump in and start screaming “Colonialism! Orientalism! Rape!”
If that’s all they have to say about the meeting of cultures, I feel sorry for them and the young people they teach.
Raised by helicopter parents and nurtured by intersectional educators, young people today are discouraged from exploration, from finding out, at the age of seven, where the cat hides two blocks away. They feel tongue-tied in a foreign country at the age of twenty for fear of accidentally insulting someone, which they will anyway, it’s inevitable if you are doing the whole travel thing right.
The Age of Explorers used to be celebrated; the sense of wander used to be held in high regard; the blending of cultures used to be a source of advancement and creativity. Children were taught that Columbus discovered America, and that his courage and scientific breakthroughs set examples for generations. Now that we’ve been to the moon (is that the real reason behind our inward turn?) we only tell our children that he was an exploiter of the peaceful native peoples. (Although archeology is starting to erode that modern spin on history.)
There is a lot we keep hidden from our children. My oldest is about to finish elementary school. If she knows anything about the Founding Fathers other than the fact that George Washington owned slaves, it’s because our family taught her. I’m pretty sure she is the only student in her class who has heard about the Magna Carta. Yet this is the history of our liberty.
Young people buy into certain ideologies because they are completely ignorant about other ways of thinking. For instance, as much as parents and educators like the idea of art, they discuss art at a very superficial level. Kids don’t know what is never taught, and I suspect that “cultural appropriation” is trending in the current climate because children are taught about it to the exclusion of other ideas. It is the language of creativity criticism that they have: some sources of inspiration are prohibited. Will they oblige and turn inward, or will the taboo only pique their imaginations?
One of the most popular Indo-European tales opens with a passage about a merchant going on a long journey. He asks his daughters what kind of gifts they would like him to bring. His two oldest daughters ask him to bring expensive jewelry from the foreign lands, but his youngest, and favorite, daughter only wants a beautiful flower. It’s the flower that sets her off on an adventure.
Fascination with foreign lands has nurtured hearts and minds. It has productive value. The cheongsam is like the flower in the tale: it’s simple, distinctly beautiful, and inspirational. It’s one of China’s gifts to the world.
