Pop star makes fashionable gesture

The 'prince of love ballads' donates vintage qipao to museum to showcase their eternal appeal, Zhang Kun reports.

Jeff Chang Shin-che, known as "the prince of love ballads" in the Chinese pop music scene, donated 12 vintage qipao that he collected to the Shanghai Museum on July 24.

"I remember as a child seeing my maternal grandmother and great-grandmother. They would always dress up and put on their qipao before going out," the singer says at the donation ceremony at the Shanghai Museum. "The memory inspired my interest in traditional Chinese clothing and that's how I started my collection."

Born in 1967 in Taiwan, Chang began his music career in 1989.Over the past decades, he released a series of chart-topping albums and maintained his popularity across the Taiwan Strait and Southeast Asia.

Following his advancing singing career, he developed a strong interest in antiques and became a dedicated collector of vintage Chinese garments, furniture and early 1900s commercial poster calendars.

As a curator, he organized a series of exhibitions and compiled books about his collection. From May 2019 to October 2020, Chang and his team created the exhibition Min Chao, or Folk Art and Fashion, featuring rare manuscripts of calendar posters from the early 20th century, which were presented at the Aurora Museum in Shanghai.