The Cheongsam Tailors of Hong Kong

Cheongsam tailors are respectfully addressed as shifu, or ‘master’, in Hong Kong’s vernacular. Before the Second World War, few tailors of Jiangsu and Zhejiang origin had come to live in Hong Kong. But the influx of tailors from these areas in the mid-20th century pushed the cheongsam industry to the peak of its development.

In the past, the primary route into the cheongsam industry was an apprenticeship. Most apprenticeships lasted for three years, but they differed little from child labour. There was no formal training, and the chance of acquiring tailoring skills depended on the talent and perception of the individual apprentice. After completing this apprenticeship, a young man could make use of his expertise to start a career in this trade in three different ways: as a ‘cloth-wrapper tailor’ working from home and going door to door to solicit business carrying a cloth wrapper holding all his tools, as a wage-earning employee at a tailor’s shop or as a contractor setting up as the proprietor and tailor of his own workshop.

In the late 1960s, as the job market began to expand in size and variety and in the face of competition from Western garment factories, the cheongsam industry experienced great difficulty in recruiting apprentices. The inheritance of the cheongsam was thus put at risk. However, the cheongsam classes taught by veteran tailors over the past decades have trained a large number of women who are able to make their own cheongsams, this has allowed the craft to be handed down to today’s generations.