18th century during the Qing dynasty. It is traditionally handmade and is decorated with dragons and phoenixes embroideries. Nowadays, the qungua is still popular as a wedding dress in China, including in Hong Kong and Macau. Back in Ming dynasty, the women wedding dress worn by nobles and commoners was known as fengguan xiapei (traditional Chinese: 鳳冠霞帔; simplified Chinese: 凤冠霞帔) composed of the fengguan and xiapei. It eventually became the traditional wedding attire of Cantonese brides in the Guangdong regions. What is known as qungua only started to be worn in the 18th century during the Qing dynasty. The wedding dress worn in Ming dynasty continued to influence the wedding dress of the later centuries. The qungua originated in Guangdong when Liang Zhu, a Guangdong Qing dynasty politician, was rewarded with a silk wedding dress embroidered with dragons and phoenixes by the Qing Emperor at the time of his daughter’s wedding. This led to the use qungua in the Guangdong area. In 18th century, Chinese mothers would start to sew the qungua as soon as a daughter was born in the family. The qungua would then be placed as a part of the daughter’s bride dowry when she gets married. The qungua follows the ancient traditional system of shangyi xiachang (Chinese: 上衣下裳; upper and lower garment). Chinese: 裙; pinyin: qún; Jyutping: kwan4; lit. The qungua is composed of two separate garments: a gua (Chinese: 褂; pinyin: guà; Jyutping: gwaa3; lit. The qun worn in the qungua is typically straight in cut. While Western wedding dress tends to be white in colour, Chinese traditional wedding clothing favours the use of red and gold colour. The skirt could be pleated. The gua was originally black in colour while the skirt was originally red in colour. Bride wearing Qing dynasty qungua. Since then the traditional black gua and red qun started to be used for the bride’s mother instead of being worn by the brides themselves. Qungua is a two-piece garment attire: black gua and red qun. Construction of a black gua jacket. It can also be decorated with other auspicious symbols, such as pomegranate (symbolism for fertility), peony flowers, lotus flowers, bats, goldfish, butterfly and birds. The qungua is typically embroidered with the Chinese dragons called long (traditional Chinese: 龍; simplified Chinese: 龙) and the Chinese phoenix called feng (traditional Chinese: 鳳; simplified Chinese: 凤). The Betawi bridal dress, partly influenced by Chinese culture and by Indonesian culture, looks similar to the Chinese qungua. The tuaki is decorated with Chinese auspicious symbols. One difference from the qungua is the use of Betawi Lotus, also known as Betawi pomegranate, a separate ornamental garment which covers the chest and shoulder areas (similar to the yunjian of the Chinese people). Like the qungua, the Betawi bridal dress is a two-piece set of attire which composed of an ankle-length with wider bottom skirt called kun and an upper garment called tuaki. The Betawi lotus was used to denote the origins of the Betawi bride, but it was eventually replaced by beads which typically follows the Spanish cherry floral pattern. The kun and tuaki must match in colour. The fengguan xiapei is a set of attire which was composed of red mang ao (traditional Chinese: 蟒襖; simplified Chinese: 蟒袄; lit. Ming dynasty-style round-collar robe decorated with dragons, which was worn by Han Chinese women as a court robe; a xiapei (Chinese: 霞帔), which is a type of long scarf in Ming and a type of stole in Qing dynasty; a mangchu (Chinese: 蟒裙; lit. Chinese Bride in Batavia in her wedding dress, 1870. The dress is heavily influenced by Chinese culture but also shows subtle differences. The Wedding attire is sometimes decorated with Chinese cloud collar known as yunjian. The qungua is distinct from another Chinese wedding set of attire called Xiuhefu (Chinese: 秀禾服). Qing dynasty fengguan xiapei (凤冠霞帔), a yunjian is on top of the attire. The Xiuhefu typically has an overlapping jacket which closes to the right side (instead of the qungua central closing jacket) which is worn with an A-line skirt (qun) which looks similar to a mamianqun instead of a straight cut skirt. The Xiuhefu is typically embroidered with flowers and birds to symbolize love for whole seasons. The qungua is different from the cheongsam which can also be worn as a Traditional Chinese wedding dress. Prior to the 1930s and the 1940s, the cheongsam was also a two-piece set of garment which was composed of a long robe and was worn with a pair of trousers. Long Feng Gua” Wedding Tradition | US-China Institute”. The qungua is a two-piece garment composed of jacket and skirts while the modern cheongsam is currently a one-piece robe. Cultural Centre, University of Malaya (masters). JNTT (2020-07-30). “SAME SAME BUT DIFFERENT”. Qiao, Nan; Tan, Yan-rong (2017). “Talk About the Chinese Wedding Dress of Modern Women”. Indonesia-Taiwan Relations: Searching for Better Understanding. Penerbit Andi. 2021. pp. Queensland Museum Collections Online. Prof. Dr. Tirta Nugraha Mursitama, Ph.D., Dr. Shidarta, M.Hum., Dr. Yi Ying, M.Lit., M.Pd. This page was last edited on 29 November 2024, vintage qipao at 08:07 (UTC). Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License; additional terms may apply. Garrett, Valery M. (2007). Chinese dress : from the Qing Dynasty to the Present. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.