About this Event
$10 General Admission | $5 Student & Senior | Free for MOCA Members
Presented during New York Fashion Week, the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) invites you to an evening exploring the cheongsam, also known as the qipao, as a powerful symbol of modernity, femininity, and cultural exchange. Fashion curator and designer Heather Guo will trace how this iconic garment evolved during a period of profound social, political, and aesthetic transformation, as Chinese women navigated new ideas of identity, cosmopolitanism, and self expression at home and abroad.
Drawing from MOCA’s extensive cheongsam collections, the program will feature select highlights on temporary display from four personal collections belonging to Phoebe Chen, Chang Yu-I, Chao Huai Tung, and Aileen Pei. Together, Guo and Yue Ma, MOCA’s Director of Collections and Research Center, will examine how cheongsams reveal a dynamic dialogue between East and West from the early twentieth century to the present day. These women, trailblazing in their own fields with grace and agency, offer deeply personal entry points into the history of the cheongsam. The talk will trace their individual journeys through the lens of dress, revealing how the cheongsam has accompanied lives shaped by migration, ambition, resilience, and self definition.
The program will also discover how motifs such as the plum blossom and ruyi cloud carry layered cultural meanings, while Western techniques and accessories reshaped the cheongsam into a distinctly modern form. Through close looking and contextual storytelling, Guo invites audiences to reconsider the cheongsam not as a static traditional dress, but as a living archive of cultural adaptation, feminine agency, and transnational style. This program offers an engaging opportunity to connect fashion history, material culture, and Chinese American narratives, bridging the past with contemporary conversations about heritage, design, and identity.
About Heather Guo
Heather Guo is a Shanghai-born fashion curator and designer currently based in New York City. Her work centers on the preservation, study, and contemporary reinterpretation of traditional Chinese fashion, with particular emphasis on the 20th-century cheongsam (also known as the qipao). After relocating to the United States during her secondary education, Heather pursued academic training in Classics and Art History at New York University. During her undergraduate studies, she developed a sustained scholarly and curatorial interest in Chinese historical fashion, forming a substantial collection of vintage cheongsams. In 2023, she founded Hoeng Gong Silk Co., a Shanghai-based brand dedicated to the research, design, and production of garments inspired by 20th-century Chinese styles. The project encompasses the curation of vintage cheongsams and the design of ready-to-wear and custom pieces that draw on traditional craftsmanship while engaging with modern aesthetics. Through her work, Heather aims to bridge cultural heritage and contemporary style, celebrating the artistry and history of Chinese fashion.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Museum of Chinese in America, 215 Centre Street, New York, United States
USD 0.00 to USD 10.00
