Scenes of Shanghai from 1922 – 1955 shot from Sam Sanzetti’s Shanghai Studio.
Like the people of the time, Shanghai’s fashion was caught between past and future, the East and the West. With a large foreign population, including a Japanese military occupation, a booming European and American business industy, and a Jewish refugee ghetto, Shanghai was the height of fashion in China at the time. Here was a city where people might dress in hanfu or qipao, a petticoat or a flapper dress.
More photos below the cut and here, here, and here.
What a colorful and rich era. Thanks for sharing.
Beautiful photos! I recently read an interview with Marjorie Liu, author of the graphic novel Monstress which is set in an alternate reality turn of the century China, where she talked about pre-WWII Shanghai becoming a very popular setting for Chinese genre fiction. Her take is that is was such a mixture of cultures that almost anything was possible and so authors are free to write almost any storyline. It made me think of Wu Xin: The Monster Killer and The Lady & The Liar.
That’s really interesting because I was just think about the same thing. Do you have a link to the interview? The Republican period is very somber, but it makes a great setting for stories. I’ve noticed especially that the brief period of “peace” in the 1930’s is very popular for romances, and the early 1940’s is the best for espionage given that there are the Japanese, the Nationalists, the Communists, the puppet government, the Europeans, and the gangs all fighting for control.
The original link is: http://thenerdsofcolor.org/2015/10/12/making-monstress-an-exclusive-conversation-with-marjorie-liu/ and the second link is: http://www.newsarama.com/23169-exclusive-marjorie-lius-dark-fantastic-adventure-at-image-monstress.html.