A Chinese Diaspora's Little Black Dress
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| Qipao, China, 1928–29. LACMA, gift of Costume Council Fund. Designer Jason Wu customized the show's mannequins |
In recent years LACMA's costume collection has grown to become one of the most significant in the U.S. There are hints of that, at least, in the Geffen Galleries installations and also on the second floor of BCAM. "Fashioning Chinese Women: Empire to Modernity" offers a first look at a 2022 gift from Chere Lai Mah. She donated a unique collection of modern Chinese diasporic costume that her mother in law, Susan Mah, had painstakingly assembled. Concerned about COVID and wildfires, Lai Mah wanted to secure the collection's preservation and appreciation.
Most U.S. museum collections of Chinese fashion foreground elite dynastic wear (such as the Qing court robe featured, by itself, in one of the Geffen's smallest rooms.) Mid-20th century costume in Maoist China was austere if not drab. But there was an alternate history of Chinese fashion being forged in Hong Kong and across the globe.
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| Left: Cheongsam, Hong Kong, 1960–1965 Right: Cheongsam, probably U.S., 1960s |
Susan Mah lived in Fresno but was anything but provincial, commissioning the latest styles from Hong Kong and Shanghai. Her collection tells the history of the cheongsam or qipao, a dress with a Mandarin collar and a form-fitting silhouette. Popularized by movie stars and global fashionistas, it has become a quintessentially modern expression.
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| Left: Designed, sewn, and worn by Susan Mah, Cheongsam with Egyptian print, 1948 Right: Susan Mah, Cheongsam with Mayan print, 1948 |
As World War II interrupted supply chains, Mah began designing her own dresses, cleverly using the modernist designs that were ubiquitous in mid-century California. Two examples show the influence of ancient cultures on the modern imagination. One incorporates Egyptian hieroglyphics, while another invokes the Mayan Revival. The casual celebration of the hybrid is something rarely encountered in American displays of Chinese fashion.
"Fashioning Chinese Women" is in BCAM through October. 12, 2026.
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| Jacket (Ao), China, 1927-28 |
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| Installation view |
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| Qipao, China, 1922. LACMA, gift of Chere Lai Mah |
Comments
Alexander McQueen and Reigning Men are two exhibitions I can think of right now. LACMA has really done great in this department.
> one of the Geffen's
> smallest rooms.
Way too many of LACMA's artworks in the Geffen are exhibited in a "by itself" format. Or where too much blank wall or floor space separates one object from another. The room with the one piece of clothing in it, however, takes that to an extreme.
Da Vinci's Mona Lisa presumably deserves that white-glove treatment, but most of LACMA's collection ain't exactly that rarefied. Then again, the museum does have more space than it knows what to do with---and more exhibit space than items in storage.
Yea, uh-huh. Whatever you say, Michael Govan, curators and staffers.
Also, I thought an exhibit in the category of costumes and textiles would be shown in the Resnick, not BCAM. So this is one time when LACMA is taking space away from the category of contemporary-modern art. But they'll probably offset that by the galleries in the Geffen currently devoted to performance art being switched over to what's shown at, say, Dataland.