My mother, Julia Young Chang grew up in Shanghai, China and fled to Hong Kong with her family when the Communists were taking over. Around 1950, she was awarded a college scholarship as a pianist in America. Her mother knew she would need performance outfits as well as normal clothes and would probably not be able to buy good Chinese dresses there. As family legend tells it, she said ‘You must have 100 dresses!’ They did not buy them in a store. Instead, they would buy fabric and bring it to the tailor. It was like preparing a wedding trousseau over a period of time. When she finally went to America, she travelled with several typical Chinese trunks which were thin wood, covered with reddish dyed pigskin. These dresses have been kept in the trunks for 70 years.

My mother finished college, giving several recitals, but did not become a concert pianist as she had thought.  She fell in love, got married and had 5 children. She became involved with the Suzuki method of music education for young children, in its early days in the US.  She was president of a Suzuki violin school and then a Suzuki method piano teacher. She finished her career as Director of the Piano Department and Teacher of the Westchester Conservatory of Music in White Plains, NY.  She was loved by her many students and their parents, as a teacher and giver of wisdom.  She passed away several years ago, but with the satisfaction that she had lived a full life.

Modeling some of the dresses is my mother’s dress dummy which my sister had saved. My mother used it to make her own dresses when she discovered her passion for sewing.  However,  this was many years after these dresses were tailored for the 95 lb young lady. The dresses were much too small, so first the dummy was outfitted with my sister’s ‘spanks’ girdles and then I tied nylon straps around it to try to reduce the size more (like an echo of the terrible Chinese custom of binding young ladies’ feet).

The family tale was about the ‘100 Chinese dresses’ that were made. Perhaps the ‘100’ was just part of an expression meaning a LOT of dresses. These photographs are of the most beautiful pieces, most made of silk and making up about one third of all the pieces. Many of the others are for everyday wear (cotton, wool, linen and synthetic) and as you see, a few jackets and coats. My grandparents came over years later in the 60’s and many of my grandmother’s dresses are also in the collection. This collection would love to be exhibited someday.