Material/Technique:
dress sewn in red taffeta with a black lace over-layer has an underskirt made of colored ruffles in purple, blue, white, green, and magenta taffeta with a metal back zipper and sleeve detail made of metal hooks and elastic-string
Physical description:
Dress sewn of red taffeta with a black lace over-layer has a fitted bodice with a sweatheart neckline, a back zipper, long sleeves open along the inner arm with a laced-up sleeve detail made of metal hooks and elastic-string and a triangular extension that ends in a loop to be looped over a finger, the full outerskirt has a high slit at front center. An underskirt made of colored taffeta ruffles in purple, blue, white, green, and magenta is revealed during dancing.
Content description:
This is a dress that “Fei Ying” wore as part of the costume for her signature dance. See images of Fei Ying in costume, performing. Mary Young was born in the late 1920s in Hanford, CA, and raised in Visalia. She took on the stage name “Fei Ying” when she began her career as an exotic dancer at the Forbidden City in San Francisco. She went on to be a featured performer at Fong Wan’s Oakland nightclub the New Shanghai Terrace Bowl, the only Chinese nightclub with vaudeville acts and Chinese entertainment in the East Bay in the 1940s. She toured extensively and headlined at venues throughout the West Coast and Pacific Northwest during the 1940s. The costume she wore for her signature act, the fans she used during her fan dance, and the photographs that document her performances will allow OMCA to tell her story and the story of the Chinese nightclubs of the San Francisco Bay Area. According to the Gap Analysis, OMCA will prioritize “objects which fill gaps in our ability to tell the stories of the diverse peoples and cultures of California, their identities and the dynamics of power between and among them, and help underrepresented groups find and tell their own stories.”
