Cheongsam or Qipao is one of style in Chinese dress for women. Cheongsam has been evolving since the peak of its popularity during 1930’s and still widely known as The Traditional Chinese Dress. In Indonesia, Cheongsam is also called Shanghai Dress/ Baju Shanghai, because the most commonly used were Cheongsam in Shanghai style. After the late President Abdurrahman Wahid (1940- 2009) made Lunar New Year as official national holiday, the popularity of cheongsam has been rising within Indonesian Chinese community. The cheongsam is gaining popularity as the chosen style for Indonesian Chinese women during Lunar New Year Festival. This study will look at contemporary interpretation of cheongsam by Indonesian local brand, especially the brands which intend to specialised in designing and producing cheongsam. The local brands chosen for this study are Sissae, Mandarin Peony and Heritsy.

This study will emphasise Sissae, Mandarin Peony and Heritsy websites because this medium contains the three modalities: technological, compositional and social. Another reason was the growing e-commerce culture in Indonesia, online apparel retail is in trend and still growing. Thus the visual in each brand’s website is crucial as representation of their design. This study inspect the modalities in visual methodology to dissect the modern interpretation of cheongsam by Indonesian Chinese designers. To find out market reaction and social modality, this study conducted a corresponding online survey with 70 respondents to find out each brand’s attractiveness. The respondents are Indonesian Chinese women age 17 to 40 years old who live in Bandung and Jakarta.