Dadaocheng offers free historical dress experience

Taipei’s historic neighborhood of Dadaocheng is offering a free dress-up experience that’s fun for the whole family. Visitors can dig deep in the costume wardrobe and transform into fashionable ladies and gentlemen of the 1920s. They can take pictures inside period-specific rooms inside the visitor’s center, or hit the streets of Dadaocheng as if from another age.

Whether it’s a Shanghai-style cheongsam or a Tang jacket with straw hat, these traditional garments can transport you back in time and space to the 1920s. Dadaocheng Tourist Information Center spent tens of millions of dollars renovating its interior, turning it into a set where visitors can try out retro clothing for free. It’s a big hit with the kids.

Visitor
At Dadaocheng Tourist Information Center
We’re on a family vacation and this was on the way, so we all came to have fun in Taipei together. We thought, the Lunar New Year is coming up, so we should go to Dihua Street to browse the holiday wares. Then we saw this new attraction. We thought it was very novel.

Visitor
At Dadaocheng Tourist Information Center
It’s a very curious feeling. This is my first time wearing this kind of clothing. It feels like a trip back to the past.

The tourist center has a classroom straight from the Japanese colonial era. It’s also got a traditional Chinese medicine pharmacy and a tea shop – all great places for selfie. Costumed visitors rotate from room to room, as if characters in a historical drama. Taipei’s tourism department hopes this historical dress experience will attract more visitors to Dadaocheng and breathe new life into the old street.

Chu Pin-ze
Taipei tourism department
Our hope is this activity will drive development in this entire commercial district and increase its tourism revenue. That’s what the local community eagerly looks forward to.

Staff member
Dadaocheng Tourist Information Center
Most of our visitors are walk-ins. They’ll come and just try on the clothing.

Still in traditional garb, these visitors take to the streets of Dadaocheng, becoming walking and talking marketing campaigns for what this neighborhood has to offer.