CECILIA CHIANG’S FASHIONS EXHIBIT AN APPETITE FOR DESIGN.
Cecilia Chiang is best known for introducing Americans to a refined style of northern Chinese cuisine with the Mandarin, the San Francisco restaurant she opened in 1961. But even locals are probably less aware of the dresses that Chiang, 98, designed and wore when she presided over the restaurant, greeting celebrities from the late New Orleans cooking legend Paul Prudhomme to members of the Jefferson Airplane.
That has changed with a Lunar New Year show at Saks Fifth Avenue through Sunday, Feb. 25, which highlights some of the beautiful garments that Chiang designed and had made by her Hong Kong tailor from the 1960s to the 1990s. About 16 of her pieces are on mannequins inside the entrance to Saks, while others were shown on models at the show’s Feb. 8 opening and on a few following weekends.
The dresses normally fill the closets of Chiang’s Pacific Heights apartment, where Megan Connelly Gaffney of Saks first saw them when preparing the show. As Chiang pulled out each dress, Gaffney said she couldn’t believe the quality of the fabrics, the hand-sewn hems and dress closures, and the buttons made of jade and pearls.
“We didn’t know what to expect,” says Gaffney, who said the show represents only about one-fifth of Chiang’s personal collection. “She had a story about every one.”
Chiang is often credited with helping introduce Americans to “authentic” Chinese food, a reputation that earned her a James Beard Foundation lifetime achievement award in 2013 and made her the subject of a Wayne Wang documentary in 2014 and a PBS cooking series in 2016.
When she opened the Mandarin, most San Franciscans had only tried the Americanized version of Cantonese food introduced by Gold Rush-era immigrants. They were equally unaware of fine Chinese clothing, said Chiang, since most immigrants came from modest backgrounds whereas Chiang grew up in a wealthy Beijing household with its own tailor before she fled China during the Communist revolution.
“I just wanted to really bring the Chinese culture to introduce to Americans,” including, she says, the “ABC or Americanborn Chinese.”
Even so, Chiang’s garments also show a typically San Franciscan blend of Western and Eastern influences. While most of the pieces are based on traditional Chinese style, such as the cheongsam or qipao dress, Chiang often used modern fabrics that she picked up during frequent travels to Europe. Then, she had her tailor add trim and embroidery and other elements cut out from antique gowns that were otherwise too worn to wear.
“She’s really an artist. She has an eye, and when she ordered her clothing to be made, she would choose the fabric and choose the embellishment,” said Sue Lee, the just-retired executive director of the Chinese Historical Society of America, who helped organize the show and is also a friend of Chiang’s. “She was exposed to Western design and fashion.”
A dark blue long-sleeve dress includes rainbow-colored trim, taken from one of her mother’s dresses, on the Mandarin collar and along the edges of the leg slits, Chiang said.
“I am taller than my mother,” Chiang said. “I had to have them cut it out.”
The idea behind the show at Saks, Gaffney said, is to celebrate Lunar New Year in a way that’s specific to the local Chinese American community. In recent years, the store had window displays featuring vintage qipao — as in 150 years old — from collector Sally Yu Leung. This, however, is the first show to focus on Chinese-inspired fashion designed by a local.
Chiang’s tailor made dresses for her up into his 90s, and has since passed away. Chiang doesn’t have many clothes made anymore, partly because of a shoulder injury that makes it hard to get into them. But she seems suitably proud of her collection.
“Anyway, I love clothes,” Chiang said with a laugh.