Because of the large population and the great influence on clothes from political force that esteems unification, whatever dress it is, once it became popular, it could easily be spread nationwide in an astonishing degree. Who would ever imagine that in 1960s, Chinese people, who occupies the one-fourth of the world population, would take service uniform as civil dress?
Though falling into the western style army uniform category, in specific form and style, the Chinese People's Liberation Army uniforms try to avoid the influence from the European and American, but tend to be more Soviet Union style. In 1950s, Land Army Officers wore big army caps and soldier wore ship-shaped caps. The collar type, tying way of fire sam browne belt showed obvious features of Soviet Union army uniform. Navy uniforms adopted the standard international type. Officers wore big army caps, navy blue army uniforms in winter and white hats, white jackets, blue trousers in summer. Soldiers wore brimless army caps with two black ribbons hanging behind, white jackets with big turn-down collars in blue strips, blue trousers that were tied outside the jacket with brown cowhide belts. Because this kind of international standard marine uniform looked nice, for long period of time, there was a type of children's clothes that imitated the uniform. But for children, the army caps with hard tops were replaced with brimless caps with soft tops, and words of "Chinese People's Liberation Army" around the cap were replaced with "Chinese People's Young Navy." This type of dress was generally called "navy uniform." But other land army and air service uniforms were not popular among common people.
