Colors

• Colors hold significant symbolism in the Chinese culture. The culture has three central colors, which many dresses make use of. Red, the color of blood, represents happiness and good luck and appears frequently as the base color for a dress. Black shows up less often for the fabric, as it represents suffering, but may appear in the embroidery. White balances the two colors and symbolizes purity and honesty, but it may also signify death. The basic fabric or embroidery colors may also change for dresses meant to indicate different seasons. Green and blue signify spring, red represents summer, white indicates autumn and black appears for winter. Other colors also have specific meanings. Gold represents strength and wealth, pink indicates marriage and purple also signifies wealth.
  
  

Symbols

• The embroidery featured on dresses stems from traditional cultural symbolism. Common motifs featured in ancient Chinese paintings appear even on contemporary Chinese clothes. In past centuries, symbols of power, like dragons and phoenixes, only appeared on the dresses of the upper class. Lower classes used solid colors or simple, abstract prints. Many Chinese dresses in contemporary society still use geometric patterns, but extravagant symbols appear more frequently than before. Dragons represent strength, power and good luck. The "Fenghuang," or phoenix, symbolizes virtue and grace. Lions have mystic connotations and serve as guardians. Tigers embody a drive for achievement and the balance of beauty and ferocity.
  
  

Fabrics

• Many dressmakers design cheongsam using smooth material with a considerable amount of sheen, such as silk, silk brocade or satin. Originally, however, the fabric used for Chinese dresses depended largely on the social status of the individual wearing the dress. Only the upper class of society, including government officials, had dresses made of silk. Lower classes could only have clothing made of low-quality cotton. Starting in the last few decades of the 1900s, however, the limits on silk loosened. From that point, a broader ranger of individuals from multiple classes could opt for either silk or cotton dresses.
  
  

Shapes

• The traditional Chinese cheongsam has a shape meant to flatter the short, slim figure of the average Chinese woman. In earlier centuries, many dresses had a loose, baggy appearance, and showing the shape of a woman's body evoked a certain level of impropriety. This changed in the 1900s, though. Around the time that foot-binding fell out of fashion and Chinese society gained interest in Western practices, Chinese dresses became tighter. In the 1940s, the ankle-length, slim-fitting cheongsam came about. These high-collared dresses have small cap sleeves or may be sleeveless, and some have a slit extending up from the bottom to the knee.