- In the 1980s, Song Huai-kuei helped establish China’s fashion industry and lay the groundwork for foreign brands to enter the market
- Exhibition features more than 320 objects, from Song’s Pierre Cardin dresses to her tapestry art
A fashion shoot at the Forbidden City with Song Huai-kuei and Chinese models that she trained in the 1980s. Photo: YonfanWith her oil paintings, tapestries, flowing dresses and business acumen, Song Huai-kuei (1937-2006) was a trailblazing cultural force who used art and fashion to help open 1980s China to the world. Madame Song, as she was known, shaped the development of Chinese contemporary culture as an artist, model and entrepreneur.
During China’s economic reforms in the 1980s, Song contributed to the establishment of the Chinese fashion industry and helped to lay the groundwork for foreign fashion brands to enter the market.
“Madame Song is a figure everyone who is interested in the roots of Chinese contemporary visual culture needs to know,” said Bernard Chan, the chairman of the board of Hong Kong’s M+ museum.
As a tribute to her influence, the M+ museum is holding a special exhibition in its West Gallery, titled “Madame Song: Pioneering Art and Fashion in China”. Featuring more than 320 objects, the exhibition highlights the many hats Song wore with five interconnected sections: “Who is Madame Song?”, “Artist”, “Entrepreneur”, “Fashionista” and “Cultural Ambassador”.
Here are a few highlights of the exhibition from each section.
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1. Pierre Cardin evening dress from Song’s collection
The first section “Who is Madame Song?” offers a glimpse into Song’s life through her wardrobe. Six evening gowns designed by French fashion designer Pierre Cardin are among the most spectacular outfits Song owned.
In the 1980s in China, most people still wore plain Mao suits, a modern Chinese tunic in solemn blue or grey that was introduced by Sun Yat-sen. Thus, Song’s extravagant outfits highlight the vibrant fashion culture she was bringing to a society that was gradually opening up.
One of the evening gowns was also featured in the short film Beijing Love (2010), an homage to Madame Song. Made of silk velvet with a high neckline at the front and a sensual v-cut back, the dress is framed by a large taffeta ruffle that extends above the shoulders like wings.
2. Composition Rouge (Composition in Red) (1974)
As an artist, Song had studied oil painting at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, but when she moved to Europe in 1958 with her Bulgarian husband, she began creating tapestry art, imbuing it with the spirit of Chinese philosophy and feminism.
Composition Rouge is woven into the shape of a butterfly using fibres of various textures. The work belongs to Song’s Butterfly tapestry series inspired by the Daoist parable, Zhuang Zhou Dreams He’s a Butterfly. In it, Zhuang Zhou wakes up from a dream of becoming a butterfly – it feels so real that he cannot tell if he is a human who dreamed of being a butterfly, or a butterfly now dreaming about being human.
Meanwhile, the art piece is also suggestive of the female body and represents the artist’s exploration of herself. This was Song’s visual nod to the feminist movements in the West during the 1970s.
3. Pierre Cardin day dress
Though this is another dress from the famed French designer, it is exhibited in the “Entrepreneur” section, which depicts how Song entered the business world as a chief representative in China for Pierre Cardin’s brand in the 1980s.
In 1983, she also helped Cardin launch a branch of his renowned restaurant Maxim’s in Beijing, bringing authentic French cuisine and a place for urban elites to gather. It was the first Western dining establishment to open in China after the end of the Cultural Revolution.
The sleeveless day dress in this part of the exhibition has abstract floral prints that perfectly blend professionalism and style. It has a detachable collar and a playful pleated skirt at the bottom.
4. Pierre Cardin dress worn by Song and the models she trained
“Fashionista” focuses on Song’s pioneering role in cultivating the Chinese fashion ecosystem, from training China’s first crop of professional models to bringing Chinese models to the international stage and organising some of the country’s earliest fashion shows.
5. Costumes from Five Dynasties fashion show
The final section “Cultural Ambassador” shows how Song promoted historical Chinese clothing to the rest of the world by designing clothes inspired by traditional Chinese imagery. This part of the exhibition also traces how Chinese culture developed in an international context over the past three decades.
Song designed this set of costumes for the Five Dynasties fashion show which she organised in her later years. The costumes integrate modern aesthetics into traditional clothing designs from the Tang dynasty to the Qing dynasty.
The show was carried out in many Western countries in the 1990s, as it sought to reestablish historical Chinese garments in the mainstream global fashion world.
Tickets for the Madame Song exhibition are available on the M+ website and cost HK$70 for full-time students and HK$140 for adults. The entry includes access to other collections in the museum.