People who watched the film In the Mood for Love directed by Wong Kar-wai may still vividly remember the lithe and graceful figure of Hong Kong star Maggie Cheung dressed in elegant Chinese-style cheongsam, or qipao, which has a history of several centuries.
And people might also remember when national leaders wore colorful "Tangzhuang" a traditional Chinese jacket with a buttoned opening down the front at the 2001 APEC Summit.
Chinese-style clothing developed 2,000 years ago is making a comeback. Today, more and more people wear Chinese-style clothing at evening parties, at formal meetings, in the office or even on the streets.
However, the simple Chinese-style clothes of olden times have been updated and beautified. Today, fashion designers use traditional and modern ideas to create new Chinese-style clothing fashions.
Six categories
Industry insiders identify six categories of Chinese-style clothing sold today.
The first variety is the very traditional one suitable the aged people in the remote rural areas, which are usually made by the wearers themselves.
The second group is ready-to-wear wedding and prom dresses. These dresses are usually big sellers during festivals, especially in the Chinese Lunar New Year, since their traditional style and bright colors can best express people's jubilation during these cheerful days. 
The third category is formal business dress suitable for the office or forums, while the fourth variety is business-causal, and the fifth is causal and sportswear.
These three groups of dresses look very different from the traditional attire of the past, because they incorporate many modern design elements. However, they inherit the spirit of traditional Chinese dresses and adopt some conventional design elements.
The last type of traditional Chinese-style clothing is a special variety sold at tourism hotspots.
These clothes display the rich flavor of the culture of China's minority ethnic groups, such as tie-dyed clothes from Dali, a popular tourism spot in Southwest China's Yunnan Province.
Maturing industry
The production of Chinese-style clothing became an industry in a modern sense in the mid-1990s. After a decade of development, Chinese designers have become more mature, and a number of brands have built up their market status, such as Mu Zhen Liao, Shanghai Xu, Ge Ge, Su Luo, Pu Yu and A-You.
However, the industry's growth depends heavily on designers who are usually unknowledgeable when it comes to business administration. Consequentially, most of the companies failed to get market share quickly. And dresses suitable for business and daily wear are still very rare.
It will take a long time to foster a stable clientele base, because people usually purchase Chinese-style clothes at random according to insiders. 
 Over the past decades, Chinese women's fashions have become so Westernized that Western-style clothing has become mainstream for both work and daily life. Nowadays, Chinese traditional clothes are rarely seen on the streets.
However, in recent years many women, especially young ladies are more and more attracted to the qipao and traditional dresses. There seems to be a comeback of the traditional Chinese dresses with a combined sense of nostalgia and modernity.
For instance, wearing jeans with embroidered silk shoes, or dressing in a qipao with modern dyed hair have both become cool new fashion statements.
And traditional Chinese-style costumes combined with modern designs are gaining popularity.
They emphasize the women's curves, exquisite embroideries, and compared with the traditional styles, new designs offer more exposure of the skin. For instance, some new qipao feature a backless design.
Though ready-to-wear Chinese-style costumes can be found everywhere, women still tend to opt for hand-made garments as they believe these dresses stand not only for tradition, but also for fashion.
Beijing still is home to a few tailors that can create the perfect traditional outfit for you. Depending on your special requirements for silk quality, design, beads and embroidery, the cost to ask a designer to make a hand-made Chinese garment ranges from US$50 - 5000.
Believe it or not, more and more expatriates would bring a qipao home as a proof that they have had a typical Chinese costume from this mysterious land.