Interesting. If I remember my sartorial history aright, there was a lot of good tailoring done for the very large foreign colony in Shanghai before WWII. After the victory of the Reds in 1949-50, many of the Shanghainese tailors fled to Hong Kong and did much to make HK a center of tailoring.

As I recall, W.W. Chan & Sons were originally Shanghainese before opening up in Kowloon. They now have not one but two tailoring shops in Shanghai. It's interesting how Shanghai seems to have gone full circle.

Shanghai must have been a fascinating place for a European or American to have lived during the seven decades or so prior to WWII, at least if you had a bit of money. Sounds like it's a pretty happening place these days as well.

Funny at my age to think of describing someplace in China as a "happening place." During my young manhood, at the height of the Cultural Revolution, China seemed like the most dreary, gawdawful human anthill imaginable, and the Chinese Horde was always the Ultimate Enemy.

If someone had said to me at the height of the VC's Tet Offensive in 1968, "Relax. In a little less than 20 years, generals of the Chicom People's Liberation Army will be boozing it up with your pals, the good ol' boys of the Shootin' Crowd, in girlie bars in Vegas, and you will be there to witness it," I would have thought he was mad as a hatter, yet so it came to pass. Since then, I have never been able to take ideological enmity quite as seriously as before.