Before 1980s, many housewives made clothes for their kids by themselves.         Beidaihe Beach in 1960s,people enjoying their vacation     This was a clothes shop that made tailor-made clothes for customers.   Two children wearing the marine style kids clothes.   The special counter that sold printed cloth in Beijing Department Store in 1970s.

The social etiquette also changed from bow to handshake or salute. The dresses of farmers and workers became the new fashion - overalls with gallous, working caps with a round top and front brim, cotton cloth rubber sole shoes, white head wrapping towels, felt hats or straw hats, Chinese style short coats and loose trousers and square opening black cloth cover shoes etc. became signs of this new fashion. Even though sometimes there might be some improvements on the dress, they were hardly more than a turn-down collar and some outer pockets for the working dress. City women, however, wore printing cloth cotton coat of all different colors inside the blue or grey jackets. In festive days, the typical costume for Shan Bei Yangge (a popular rural folk dance) was to tie fresh red and green color ribbons around waist with two hands holding the two ends of the ribbon. The image of ribbons floating while dancing became the fad all over the country overnight.

   So there appeared some uniform dressing styles and typical dresses that were prevalent to an astonishing degree, such as the Lenin dress and patterned cotton coat which could represent this tendency. In early years of new P. R. China, Sino-Soviet Union relationship was close, so in China you could also see men wearing cricket cap - Soviet Union's worker's cap, and women wearing the Lenin dress. The so-called "Lenin dress" is a kind of diamond cloth double-breasted suit with a straight collar and sometimes with a cotton belt of the same color and two hidden pockets in the middle of lower part of front garment piece. Actually Lenin dress originally was not Soviet Union women's dress. Soviet Union women as well as other women in East Europe mostly wore skirts. Because it signified agricultural and industrial revolution, Lenin dress became the new dress style that symbolized the national renascence. Because its design was new and it could show the wearer's advanced thoughts, Lenin dress became the typical dress for governmental unit's female working staff.

   Figured cloth cotton coat was also a sign of farmer and worker dress. Historically, this dress was the most common winter clothes for Chinese women and it has a long history. But in new China, the dressing way of figured cotton coat carried revolutionary meaning. Cotton coats made by scattered small flower patterned cloth of bold colors (mostly with red) were mainly the winter clothes for girls or young girls before 1950s. Adult women mostly used silk or satin as the surface materials of the cotton coat. Women from poor family used plain color cloth. After the foundering of new China, traditional Chinese fabrics such as silk or satin seemed to carry strong feudalistic sense, so working women or female students abandoned satin and used flower pattern cloth to make their cotton coat to show their nearness to farmers and workers.

    Women wore an unlined garment outside the cotton coat to prevent the coat from getting dirty and to avoid the frequent washing while maintaining the progressive image. In 1950s, those women who still had not walked out of home and started to work in the society were generally called housewife. These women didn't have strong consciousness of "women liberation, "so over-clothes they wore were mostly in duijin style with knot buttons and dajin style for middle aged and old women. Most of the governmental department working staff, female workers and students wore Lenin dress as over-clothes. In the later years of 1960s, along with the deterioration of Sino-Soviet Union relationship, women no longer wore Lenin dress, but wore "welcoming guest dress." This dress was similar to men's Sun Yat-sen's uniform with a turn-down collar and five buttons except some changes in collar and pocket design. This so called "welcoming guest dress" was very common in the decade between middle 1960s and middle 1970s. This dress was gradually abandoned when China adopted Reform and Open Door policy, but it was still very common among middle aged and old women until the middle and later part of 1990s.

   No matter how style changed, those over clothes worn outside the flower patterned cotton coat were mostly solid color blue and gre~ and some were brown and black. Women by nature love beautiful things, and would not bear wearing dark color dress for long period of time. So sometimes they would intentionally make the flower patterned cotton coat longer than the over clothes, and in this way, color and design of the cotton coat would be exposed in collar, sleeve and tile lower hem part. Even though it was easy to dirty the cotton coat in this way, this dressing way still became a fashion followed by many women.

   Because of the large population and the great influence on clothes from political force that esteems unification, whatever dress it is, once it became popular, it could easily be spread nationwide in an astonishing degree. Who would ever imagine that in 1960s, Chinese people, who occupies the one-fourth of the world population, would take service uniform as civil dress?

   Though falling into the western style army uniform category, in specific form and style, the Chinese People's Liberation Army uniforms try to avoid the influence from the European and American, but tend to be more Soviet Union style, in 1950s, Land Army Officers wore big army caps and soldier wore ship- shaped caps. The collar type, tying way of the sam browne belt showed obvious features of Soviet Union army uniform. Navy uniforms adopted the standard international type. Officers wore big army caps, navy blue army uniforms in winter and white hats, white jackets, blue trousers in summer.

Soldiers wore brimless army caps with two black ribbons hanging behind, white jackets with big turn-down collars in blue strips, blue trousers that were tied outside the jacket with brown cowhide belts. Because this kind of international standard marine uniform looked nice, for long period of time, there was a type of children's clothes that imitated the uniform. But for children, the army caps with hard tops were replaced with brimless caps with soft tops, and words of "Chinese People's Liberation Army" around the cap were replaced with "Chinese People's Young Navy." This type of dress was generally called "navy uniform." But other land army and air service uniforms were not popular among common people.

   In 1965, the standing committee of Chinese National People's Congress decided to abolish the military mark system, and the corresponding change was that both officers and soldiers all wore liberation caps with a round top and front brim on which a metal red pentagram shape badge was attached. Army jackets had five buttons and a stand collar on which a red flag badge was sewn at the two ends of collar. The army uniform had no shoulder mark or arm badge or any kind of military marks. The differences between officer and soldier uniform were the materials and the pocket design. For officers above main platoon rank, uniforms used wool-dacron textile and there were four pockets in the front garment piece. Those under the rank of vice platoon were treated as soldiers. Their uniform used cotton textile and there were only two upper pockets. There were no army type skirts and brimless caps for female soldiers and their uniform style was similar to male soldiers' uniform. Fhe color for land army uniform was olive green, for air force was green for upper clothes and blue for pants and for navy was grey. The stand collar uniform jacket of three armies was generally called "service dress" (There was no full dress at that time) and the most typical army green was the dominant color.

    Since Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) began, the image of liberation army uniform had become the most revolutionary, pure and reliable symbol. The trend started with army men's children turning out their father's uniform and soon the image of green army uniform with brown leather belt became to lead the trend. Following that, universities and high schools all over the country one after another founded the "Red Guard" organization; primary schools founded "Little Red Guard" organization, and workers and farmers started to set up "Red Guard Team." Everyone was supposed to take the responsibility of a soldier. Because they couldn't find the true uniforms, Red Guards then bought the army uniform reproductions, which were generally called the service dress. Without the cap badge, collar badge and shoulder badge, red guards used a red sleeve badge printed with yellow color character of "Red Guard" to show their status.

   The decade before tile new China, traffic policemen's winter uniforms were blue "big crown" caps, blue jackets and blue trousers. Those on shift wore white raglan sleeve that reached shoulder. Summer uniforms were white "big crown" caps, white jackets and blue trousers. When cultural revolution raged tempestuously, policemen's uniforms completely copied the army uniforms - the color changed into green, the "big crown" cap changed into the cloth liberation cap with a round top, and black leather shoes changed into green rubber sole cloth shoes. To differ it from the red pentagon army badge, policemen still wore their policeman badge in front of the cap.

   It was the "going up to mountain and down to countryside" movement participated by 30 million city young people that pushed "service dress rage" to another climax. In 1964, the first bunch of young intellectual young men hurried to Xinjiang to reclaim the wasteland and founded Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps. When they were seen off at the train station, they wore green service dresses and military caps, but without cap badges and collar badges. In 1968, large scale of young intellectuals "going up to mountain and down to countryside" movement began, they all wore green service dresses dispatched by the nation when they hurried to countryside or remote places.

    Another important form of "everyone taking the responsibility of a soldier" was the posse men¡¯s drill. The simulative army drill was rather common. Workers, intellectuals and school students were all proud of wearing army uniforms. Those who didn't wear service dress would wear blue or grey uniforms, but they still wore green army caps and rubber sole shoes and carried army marching pack bags, army satchels and kettles. This time of "everyone wearing army uniforms" gradually ended along with the advent of China's Reform and Opening Door policy.

   In the middle and later period of 1980s, there was another round of "everyone wearing army uniform" trend - every winter, people of all classes, sexes, and social positions wore army cotton padded overcoats. Because that traffic vehicle was mainly bicycles in those times, indoor clothes were not suitable for outside cold weather and the newly arisen winter proofing coat was too short to cover the legs, the makeshift was to buy an inexpensive but practical army overcoat. Army overcoat became trendy dress.

   This army dress trend lasted about ten years. Until the beginning of 1990s, when leather coats and down coats appeared in the market in large volume, army overcoats gradually faded from one's memory.