This cheongsam belonged to Mrs Benjamin Sheares, the wife of Singapore’s second President, Mr Benjamin Sheares. Mrs Sheares was born Yeo Seh Geok (b.1917-2014) in Quanzhou, a small town near Xiamen in the southern Fujian province of China. She came to Singapore in the late 1930s to escape the Japanese invasion of China. Soon after, she started training as a midwife at the Kandang Kerbau Hospital (KKH). In 1939, she married Dr. Benjamin Sheares, an established surgeon who later became the president of Singapore from 1969 to 1981. The op art print of this cheongsam reflects a preference in the 1960s and 1970s for these fabrics.
