In 1846, the British empire occupied the sea port cities of Zhejiang province in China. Many wealthy and affluent expats settled in Shanghai and Ningbo. Living and working there naturally meant establishing lines of supply for the necessities and creature comforts from home, and bringing in their master tailors was no exception. They began the task of recruiting young boys from Zhejiang. These boys were the sons of farmers and Chinese dressmakers. They were used to a bitter life of hard work and their hands were small and well-suited to the craft. Their economic situations were such that the prospect of moving to the big city to apprentice under a master tailor from England was a fine opportunity indeed.
In 1928, at the height of Shanghai's Grand Days, when it was known as ‘The Paris of the East, the New York of the West’, practically all of the tailors in Shanghai were Chinese. It was during this time that Shanghai tailors truly acquired the international reputation as world-class tailors. They became known as Hongbang Cai Feng meaning ‘Red Group Tailors’. This emanated from the Chinese perception that their British masters had red hair. Even today, these tailors still use the Imperial system scaled in inches for drafting patterns and embrace the British techniques in garment making.
The Hongbang Tailors are famous for initiating the ‘Five First’ movement in the development of modern Chinese garments. They created the Chinese tunic using elements from East and West, that was later adopted as the official ‘state suit’. They opened the first Chinese Tailor and Outfitter store offering handcrafted bespoke garments and later founded the Hongbang School of Tailoring. Today, the Bespoke Tailoring Museum is located in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province because Hongbang Tailoring remains an important part of the culture and heritage of China.
After the revolution in 1949 attitudes towards the West, as well as ideas about fashion, conformity and virtually everything else, underwent huge changes. Most of the tailors that could, left for Hong Kong or Taiwan to set up shop. Taiwan never achieved the kind of status for tailoring that Shanghai had once had. Although Hong Kong enjoyed a similar reputation for cheap prices and quality work, the Chinese tailors there have since been largely supplanted by Indian suit makers. Neither of these places ever truly replaced old Shanghai and Ningbo tailors for quality.
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