Mode
Iconic look: Gong Li's (巩俐) white shirt at Cannes, France, 20 May 1993
"an elegant throwback to Hollywood's golden era" — Asiaweek on Gong Li
20 May 1993. Cannes, France.
Gong Li (巩俐) stood on the beach in a crisp white cropped shirt, crossed and knotted at the front, and a high-waisted, floor-length black skirt in a column silhouette. She looked like a Venus just born out of the water.
The event
Gong Li had come to France for Farewell My Concubine (Chinese: 霸王别姬, film, 1993), directed by Chen Kaige (陈凯歌). The film was in competition at the 46th Cannes Film Festival, held from 13 to 24 May 1993.
At the end of the festival, it shared the Palme d'Or with The Piano (film, 1993) by Jane Campion. It was the first Chinese-language film to win it.
She came to France for a film in which she played a courtesan. But that day, she looked like a goddess.
The shirt
The shirt was white, with a collar turned up at the neck, long full sleeves and buttoned cuffs. It opened into a deep V at the front.
Instead of tucking it in, she crossed the two front panels and knotted them just below the bust. A bare band of waist showed between the knot and the skirt.
The skirt was black, high-waisted and long, falling straight to the sand like a column. The only jewelry was a pair of drop earrings.
White and black, soft and straight, loose above and narrow below. The outfit was simple, and that was its power.
The story
On the same beach, she was photographed with her two co-stars, Leslie Cheung (张国荣) and Zhang Fengyi (张丰毅).
The two men wore black dinner suits. Between them, in her white shirt, Gong Li caught all the light of the dusk.
It is said that Gong Li had no stylist and no fashion house to dress her that year. She found the white shirt herself, in a small street shop, for about 80 yuan. At the official exchange rate of 1993, that was less than 14 US dollars.
Before and since, Gong Li has worn many more white shirts, casual or formal, almost always with some insouciance.
In 2018, she wore one by Carolina Herrera, with a full skirt in emerald green.
In May 2026, 33 years later, she came back to the beach at Cannes in a white shirt once more, this time with a rose-red skirt, in tribute to that day in 1993.
But she never again looked so much like a goddess.
That white shirt she wore at Cannes, that belonged to Gong Li, that is her white shirt.
Many manufacturers tried to copy it, and even more women wanted to imitate the way she wore it. But nobody managed to look the way she did that day: an oriental Venus on western water.