Dress and underslip

Physical description

Dress and underslip for a woman.
[Dress] Full-length dress of loosely knitted synthetic material. The dress is printed with a colourful chequerboard design of re-worked images of Chairman Mao. Mao is variously shown in pigtails, as a priest, in sunglasses and with bee on his nose. The dress is straight, with short sleeves and a round neck.
[Underslip] Underslip meant to be worn under the dress. It is made of knitted black synthetic material. Like the dress it is full length and straight. The garment has shoulder straps.

Place of Origin

Hong Kong, China (made)

Date

1995 (made)

Artist/maker

Tam, Vivienne (designer)

Materials and Techniques

Knitted synthetic material

Object history note

Vivienne Tam, a Canton-born and Hong Kong-educated, Chinese fashion designer working in New York, introduced distinctively Chinese imagery into her designs from the 1990s. The V&A acquired several pieces from Tam's 'Mao Collection' of spring, 1995. Pictures of Mao Zedong were ubiquitous during his lifetime and, after his death in 1976, they persisted. Some were worked anew and used in contexts that were sometimes controversial and contradictory. Vivienne Tam collaborated with Zhang Hongtu, an artist who first depicted Mao in his paintings in 1987. She emblazoned the Chairman's features onto coloured T-shirts and dresses. The dress here gives a new twist to the image of Mao.

Descriptive line

Knitted synthetic dress and underslip, designed by Vivienne Tam, Hong Kong, 1995

Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)

Geremie R. Barmé. Shades of Mao: The Posthumous Cult of the Great Leader Armonk, NY: M.E.Sharpe, 1996
Valerie Steele and John S. Major (eds.). China Chic: East Meets West. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1999, plate 1, pp. 89-91.
Vivienne Tam with Martha Huang. China Chic. New York: Regan Books, 2000

Categories

Textiles; Caricatures & Cartoons; Fashion; Underwear; Women's clothes

Collection code

EAS