This cheongsam was worn by Lucy Chan, mother of Singapore's 'Golden Girl' sportswoman Patricia Chan. Made of silk damask with numerous pearls hand stitched on the border of the neckline, sleeves, and slit, this cheongsam is meticulously and beautifully made. It was worn by Mrs Chan for Chinese New Year, and is an auspicious dark pink colour. This cheongsam was made by a female cheongsam tailor, Mrs Laura Lav, who operated Laura's, a tailor shop selling chinese gowns on 69 Stamford Road which has since closed down. The earliest cheongsam tailors were men who migrated to Singapore from China in the 1920s and traditionally, only men were accepted as the apprentices of these Shanghainese tailors. However, after the Second World War, tailoring schools which taught women how to sew and make clothes. These schools allowed women to make their own clothes in the style that they liked. It also trained women so that they could make tailoring a business.
