cheongsam (qipao)

Qipao (; ), also known as the Cheongsam (, ; ) or referred to as the mandarin gown, is a Chinese dress worn by women which takes inspiration from the , the ethnic clothing of the Manchu people. The cheongsam is most often seen as a longer, figure-fitting, one piece garment with a standing collar, an asymmetric, left-over-right () opening and two side slits, and embellished with Chinese frog fasteners on the lapel and the collar. It was developed in the 1910s-1920s and evolved in shapes and design over years. It was popular in China from the 1920s to the '60s, overlapping with the Republican era, and was popularized by Chinese socialites and high society women in Shanghai. thumb|300px|Qipao (Chinese characters) == Terminology == As English loanwords, both "cheongsam" and "qipao" describe the same type of body-hugging dress worn by Chinese women, and the words can be used interchangeably.

The term cheongsam is a romanization of the Cantonese word ' (), which comes from the Shanghainese term '. In Cantonese and Shanghainese, the term denotes a Chinese dress that gained popularity in Shanghai. However, in Mandarin Chinese and other varieties of Chinese, () refers to an exclusively male garment, and the female version is known as the . In Hong Kong, where many Shanghainese tailors fled after the communist revolution of 1949, the word '' became gender-neutral, referring to both male and female garments.