Qipao

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    Qipao (旗袍 qípáo and pronounced roughly chee-pow) is the Mandarin Chinese name for the body-hugging, high-necked dress fashionable in the Chinese world between the 1920s and 1960s, and still popular on formal occasions to this day. The same garment is often called a cheongsam, a name derived from Cantonese.

    In popular culture, nothing spells "Chinese" like a qipao, and as a result, if a Chinese Girl or a Dragon Lady shows up, chances are she'll be wearing one. The qipao was not originally Chinese, but introduced by the Manchu invaders who established the Qing Dynasty, and was traditionally loose-fitting. The high-slit, body-hugging dress with which the name is now associated was invented in Shanghai in the 1920s.

    The qipao, or at least a dress cut like it, is also occasionally worn by non-Chinese women, as its tight fit and slit up the side ramp up the sexiness of the character while still being relatively modest. Almost always used as Fan Service.

    Examples of Qipao include:

    Anime and Manga

    • Naruto: Sakura Haruno wears a qipao, and Tenten wears a pink qipao blouse before the timeskip in the series.
    • Mahou Sensei Negima: Ku Fei and Kaede both are fond of qipaos.
    • Darker than Black: Misaki wears one with a slit very high up the side at a party thrown by a former high school classmate. Being more used to understated outfits, she feels embarrassingly exposed in it.
    • Rosario + Vampire has the girls dressing up when they're trying to get support for the new Chinese character's polygamy idea.
      • Moka also wears a white qipao in an episode of the anime's second season, in the grounds of Fan Service (as she was under an hypnotic trance).
    • Yu-Gi-Oh!: Vivian Wong wears a skimpy yellow qipao. So skimpy, in fact, that Mr. Digital Paint Bucket added Modesty Shorts in the English dub.
    • Shenhua of Black Lagoon loves wearing these, though she's Taiwanese to be precise.
    • The outfits of the main characters from Saint Beast are actually based off of this.
    • Tao Jun, Ren's older sister, wears a qipao in Shaman King. Fitting, as they're actually from China.
    • Cyborg 009 has Francoise wear one while working at Chang's restaurant, sparking humorous reactions from her coworkers.
    • Ikki Tousen: Kakouen Myousai wears a qipao. Hakufu also gets to be seen in one while waitressing in a Chinese restaurant.
      • Hakufu also wore a blue qipao after being awakened from her coma by Ukitsu's Heroic Sacrifice and returning to the battlefield to fight Sousou alongside Ryuubi-
    • Wang Liu Mei is best known for wearing a qipao in Mobile Suit Gundam 00
    • Sumire from The World God Only Knows wears the qipao of her escaped mother.
    • Ixpellia of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha has this as her most common outfit.
    • Liang Qi from Canaan wears these.
    • Every once in a while, Kagura from Gintama is dressed in one.
    • A standard fashion for Chinese Amazon, Shampoo, as well as worn occasionally by other characters.
    • Kazahaya is forced to wear one as part of a school popularity/beauty contest in Legal Drug. As Rikuo notes, no matter how much Kazahaya tries, he just can't manage to hide those long legs of his in that getup.
    • Stratos 4: The girls all wear these at their jobs as waitresses. The skirt portion is so short they barely even cover their undergarments.
    • Boa Hancock wears a purple one. In that case the exposing-leg part is justified because it helps her fighting style.
    • Hong Kong in Axis Powers Hetalia wears a normal changsam, but his girl self wears a short qipao that shows off her legs.
      • Taiwan wears a variant of one as well.
    • Shiuchon (Suzie in the dub) of Digimon Tamers wears a qipao blouse.
    • A 3WA trouble consultant named Beryl in the Dirty Pair OVAs wears one.
    • In the first Cardcaptor Sakura movie, Syaoran's older sisters all wear these. (And it is a way of telling the four apart, apparently.)
    • Yukina of Senko no Night Raid is shown wearing a qipao in a lot of official art. While this kind of makes sense given the series' Chinese setting, she never wears one within the actual series.
    • Ran-Mao in Black Butler wears a mini-dress version of the qipao... in the Victorian era when showing ankle was considered indecent.

    Comic Books

    • Les Innommables: Alix frequently wears a qipao, and so do the prostitutes at the Purple Lotus.
    • An old Archie comic has Veronica wearing a qipao, and getting furious when everyone comments on her "ripped dress".
    • Ninjette wears one in Empowered #4, at the Capeys Awards.
    • The DC Comics villainess Roulette wears one as her signature outfit, despite being white.

    Fan Fiction


    Films -- Live-Action

    • Nancy Kwan famously wore one in The World of Suzie Wong.
    • The two Chinese women who show up at the party in Breakfast at Tiffany's wear qipaos. Another guest tells one of them "Hey, honey, your skirt's split there."
    • James Bond: In Dr. No, Ursula Andress and Zena Marshall are both seen wearing qipaos.
    • One of the most famous examples in recent years is Maggie Cheung in In the Mood for Love. Not only is she wearing a qipao in every single scene, it's always a different one.
    • 2046 also by Wong Kar-wai is pretty much just the main character reminiscing with how great Maggie Cheung's Qipaos compete with long lingering shot of her standing in halls and walking in slow mode.
    • In Kill Bill, Sofie Fatale wears a garment resembling a qipao, but it is actually much closer to the traditional man's changshan. This may have been deliberate to suggest that she's a lesbian.
    • In Lust, Caution, Wong Chia-chi wears a qipao as part of her bored upper-class woman persona. In one scene, she goes to the tailor in the company of Mr. Yee to have a new one fitted, but it turns out to be slightly too tight. The result does not leave Mr. Yee indifferent.
    • The title character of House of Harmony (played by Maggie Q) wears a qipao as a matter of course, except on one occasion, when she put on a Western-style dress in an unsuccessful attempt to blend in.
    • In So I Married an Axe Murderer Nancy Travis wears a red qipao to a dinner on her honeymoon night with Mike Myers.
    • Mary-Jane Watson wears a qipao during a social occasion in the film version of Spider-Man.
    • Many characters in Flower Drum Song since it's set in 1950's Chinatown, San Francisco and the characters are either Chinese immigrants or children of Chinese immigrants.
    • In Brick, the Femme Fatale Laura Dannon wears a rather striking red one in an early party scene.
    • Cho Chang wore a qipao-style dress at the Yule Ball in the film version of Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire.


    Literature

    • The protagonists of Shanghai Girls, being fashion-conscious upper-class young women, make a big deal of wearing qipaos in the latest styles.


    Live-Action TV

    • Anna Wu wore this in an episode of Chuck, to impress her very traditional parents.
    • In The Man from U.N.C.L.E. episode "The Hong Kong Shilling Affair", Heavenly Cortelle wears a qipao.


    Video Games

    • Chun Li in Street Fighter wears a modified version. Among the differences to the traditional kind are short, puffy sleeves, a white obi lining the waist, and one huge slit on each side (instead of a single slit over one of the legs, making the skirt look more like a cloth on the front and a tail on the back), which allows for more freedom of movement (and not coincidentally shows off her muscular thighs).
    • An outfit for the thief class for females in Maple Story.
    • Guild Wars: Female mesmer clothing in factions.
    • Litchi from BlazBlue wears one.
    • Hong Meiling of the Touhou series is also depicted in fanart as wearing one, though in the original ZUN art, she wears a cheongsam with a pair of pants.
    • Part of the 'official' uniform for female Monks in Dragon Quest IX.
    • Anna Williams in Tekken. Oddly Xiaoyu, the actual Chinese Girl of the game largely eschews ethnic dress, mostly favoring athletic wear instead.
    • One of Lei-Fang's costumes in Dead or Alive. Very iconic of the series since almost every attack she does while in it guarantees a Panty Shot.
    • Maggie Chow in Deus Ex wears one to go with her Dragon Lady character.
    • Li Kohran, the Meganekko Chinese Girl of Sakura Wars, is often seen wearing one.
    • Final Fantasy V: Lenna wears one when she becomes the Monk class.
    • Shadow Yamato in the Sega CD version of Eternal Champions. She's a Ninja, by the way.
    • Shenmue 2: Xiuying Hong.
    • In Perfect Dark, Joanna Dark dons a qipao with a red dragon print in preparation for a formal event, as seen here (spoilers).
    • In Resident Evil 4, Ada Wong fights zombies in an incredibly tight qipao. One wonders how she manages to walk without falling in it, let alone pull some of the stunts she does.
    • Marilyn Sue from Akatsuki Blitzkampf fights in a gold qipao with very high slits running up either side. This doesn't pose much of a problem for her during fights, since her style emphasises powerful jabs, chops and palm strikes over kicks.
    • Occasionally on winning, Mei-Fang in Arcana Heart changes costume into a Qipao.
    • Fumi in Devil Survivor 2.

    Web Comics

    Web Originals


    Western Animation

    • The Venture Brothers - Dr. Girlfriend wears one to pick up an on-the-prowl Rusty as part of a scheme of the Monarch's.
    • Wing, the real life Chinese songstress appearing on the eponymous episode of South Park wears a red qipao.
    • Some of the outfits Mulan wore in the Direct to Video film Mulan II resemble this. Other times, she would be either wearing the training uniform and/or her battle armor or various types of hanfu dresses.
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