Hanfu revival is a recent trend among some young Chinese who are heavily influenced by what they see on their TV or movies. You know all those wuxia of fantasy TV series or movie costumes where it is beautiful to look at but extremely unpractical. It was not what average Han chinese wear in ancient time as most people are not rich enough to own silk. Most people are farmers and those long flowing robes are totally useless to farmers.

The modern qipao and cheongsam originated from the Qing/Manchu dynasty. However, is it solely a Manchu culture or a combination of Manchu Han culture? The Manchu qipao actually incorporated a lot of designs from the Ming dynasty dress especially the ladies. If you want to see how a real hanfu looks like back in Ming dynasty, you can look at the ladies wedding dress of Baba Nyonya. It is a close representation of how Ming dress looks like during Ming dynasty. The modern qipao was made popular by Shanghai tailors after the fall or Qing dynasty. The Manchu dress was tightened and modernise. Different versions of qipao was created and was also widely worn and even become school uniform for girls in the early 20th century until WW2.

However, things changed after WW2. China fell into the hands of CCP and qipao was cast aside for a few decades and solely replaced by Mao suits. Mainland Chinese only started to wear them back in the 80's when the country start to open up. That is why if you ask the youngsters in China today, they will say qipao is not Chinese national dress because the whole of China was left out when qipao become popular and symbolised Chinese national costume in the 60's.

The qipao become popular worldwide thanks to World of Suzie Wong and HK. From the 60's until the 90's, HK was representing the culture of Chinese all over the world. The Shanghainess tailors who created the modern qipao moved to HK and they modernise the qipao further by making them more figure hugging and sexier. The world of Suzie Wong reinforce the image of qipao and a lot of Chinese ladies other than those from mainland China start to wear a more figure hugging qipao. By the 70's and 80's, non-mainland Chinese were influenced by TVB and you'll see a lot of their actresses will wear elaborated designed qipao during CNY. The Miss HK pageant with their modern designs of HK made qipao the ultimate dress for a lot of Chinese ladies. Before this trend was started by HK, most Chinese ladies do not wear qipao during CNY. It was actually an everyday wear. If you don't believe, try to find old photos of Chinese ladies in the 50's or 60's and you'll notice a lot of them. A lot of Chinese teachers were also wearing them in the 60's and 70's.