Bent over a magenta chiffon fabric, an elderly tailor from Hong Kong wears thick glasses meticulously stitched into embroidered butterflies, trying to transform the shimmering material into an elegant high-collared Chinese dress known as a cheongsam.
At 88, Yan Kar-man is one of Hong Kong’s oldest tailors of the cheongsam — literally “long clothes” in Cantonese — a dress recognizable for its form-fitting figure, which famously featured in Wong Kar-wai’s film “In the mood for love”.
Experts say the silver-haired tailor is among about 10 remaining cheongsam makers in Hong Kong, which in the mid-1960s numbered about 1,000, according to records from the Shanghai General Tailors Association.
But after dressing generations of women, from housewives to movie stars like Michelle Yeoh and Shu Qi, Yan has decided he’ll be hanging up his tapestry soon — by the end of September at the earliest.
French champagne makers are trying to protect seasonal workers from abuse
“I can’t see clearly — my eyes don’t work well, neither do I. I have to retire,” she told AFP as she leaned closer to her sewing machine to attach an embroidered border to the dress.
With about 10 more dresses to go, Yan hesitated to give an exact closing day for his tiny workshop located in Jordan’s bustling Hong Kong shopping district.
Evolved from the long robes worn by the Manchurian people in China’s Qing Dynasty, cheongsams dominated the wardrobes of ordinary Chinese women for much of the 20th century since they became popular in Shanghai in the 1920s.
Its high neck collars, knee-length slits and simple appliqués evoked a sense of urban glamor and by the 1960s the dress was everywhere in Hong Kong.
The Volkswagen crisis pits domestic leaders against each other
“Women would wear them to shop in wet markets,” recalls Jan, whose workshop walls are plastered with photos of pageant queens wearing his dresses.
Some of his most famous clients have even approached major events in his life — such as Lisa Wang, a Hong Kong diva nicknamed “Big Sister” in entertainment circles, who has been a client of his for three decades.
“I didn’t know it was for her wedding when I made her a dress with one of her scarves and turned the scraps into a tie for her groom,” Yan said.
“critical threat”
Born in China’s Jiangsu Province, north of Shanghai, Yan was 13 when his uncle brought him to Hong Kong in 1949 to work as an apprentice in a workshop, where he was discovered to be a young school dropout talent.
At the time, the trade for cheongsam was so common and steady that Yan recalled that a simple design would cost “just a few (Hong Kong) dollars.”
Princess Zelda takes the lead in “Echoes of Wisdom”
Western fashion became popular after World War II, and the rise of Hong Kong’s garment manufacturing industry pushed the cheongsam out of fashion and pushed sewing workshops out of business.
Today, the traditional technique of making the dress is “critically endangered,” said Brenda Li, an adviser to the Hong Kong Cheongsam Association.
“Hong Kong cheongsam making has developed its own style and tradition over the past century, fusing dimensional cutting skills from the West,” Lee told AFP.
“Few people still wear it and care about it, but we want to keep it regardless of how niche it’s become because it’s part of our culture.”
Although the cheongsam-making technique has been recognized as part of the cultural heritage of Hong Kong and mainland China, Yan said the withering trade offers little chance of passing on his art.
“You can’t make a living making qipao because it’s not the trend anymore,” Yan said, using the Mandarin word for the dress.
Bottega Veneta holds investor aces as Madonna joins D&G
The teacher — who also teaches at a learning center near his shop — said his students were “not at all ready to make real clothes for customers.”
Today, orders usually come from older women who need a statement dress to attend their children’s weddings, and each piece takes weeks to finish and costs several thousand Hong Kong dollars (hundreds of US dollars).
“How many old clients are still out there and how many pieces of this detailed work can you do every month?” Jan asked rhetorically.
“My generation is mostly gone.”
Source: AFP