This cheongsam belonged to Mrs Benjamin Sheares, the wife of Singapore’s second President, Mr Benjamin Sheares. Mrs Sheares was born Yeo Seh Geok (b.1917-2014) in Quanzhou, a small town near Xiamen in the southern Fujian province of China. She came to Singapore in the late 1930s to escape the Japanese invasion of China. Soon after, she started training as a midwife at the Kandang Kerbau Hospital (KKH). In 1939, she married Dr. Benjamin Sheares, an established surgeon who later became the president of Singapore from 1969 to 1981. Mrs Sheares wore this cheongsam to the opening of the Toa Payoh Creche in Toa Payoh Estate in 1973, pairing the cheongsam with a matching Western-style jacket. She also wore the cheongsam to receive dignitaries at the Istana, including the President of Sri Lanka in 1978, Defence Secretary of the Philippines in 1975, Tun Razak, Prime Minister of Malaysia in 1973The daisy prints on the cheongsam may reflect a motif adopted from the 'hippie' fashion of the 1960s.
