1930s Chinese Ovaltine Advertising Poster with Woman in Qipao

This advertising poster for the Ovaltine drink in China reflects how industry has impacted the Chinese design industry’s social system in the 1930s. Instead of highlighting the Ovaltine product for sale, the poster showcases a beautiful Chinese woman in full length jade qipao with lace borders at the slip posing in a garden. Surrounding the woman are frame borders filled with illustrations of malt and milk cow to suggest the ingredients of the Ovaltine drink. The poster also included a calendar which the poster owner can hang at home for use.

While China is undergoing industrialization through the Western influences during the 1930s, it also brought in Western design elements such as models illustrations in magazines. Like the Ovaltine advertisement, many Chinese advertisements during the 1930s started incorporating the illustration of Chinese women in qipao. This phenomenon is commonly seen in advertisements for cigarettes, beers, cosmetics and more to objectify women or attract women as a consumer power. Hence, the Westernization and industrialization in China had prompted the objectification of women as an advertisement and money-making tool in design.