'intersecting collar right lapel') but can occasionally close on the left side under some circumstances in a style known as jiaoling zuoren (Chinese: 交领左衽; lit.

[note 3] The jiaoling youren was adopted by the Japanese in 718 AD through the Yoro Code which stipulated that all robes had to be closed from the left to the right in a typical Chinese way.

According to the Ladies’ Home Journal of June 1913, volume 30, issue 6:Interest in the political and civic activities of the new China, which is more or less world-wide at this time, led the designers of this page [p.26] and the succeeding one [p.27] to look to that country for inspiration for clothes that would be unique and new and yet fit in with present-day modes and the needs and environments of American women [...]Chinoiserie continued to be popular in the 1920s and was a major influence in the dress feature and fashion design of this period; simultaneously, Japonisme also had a profound impact by influencing new forms of clothing designs of this period; for example, the use of wrap top and obi-like sash as an influence of the Japanese Kimono.

[13]: 112 Although it is often claimed that Diane von Fürstenberg 'invented' what is known as the wrap dress in 1972/73,[14] Richard Martin, a former curator of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, noted that the form of Fürstenberg's design had already been "deeply embedded into the American designer sportswear tradition," with her choice of elastic, synthetic fabrics distinguishing her work from earlier wrap dresses.

The Fürstenberg interpretation of the wrap dress, which was consistently knee-length, in a clinging jersey, with long sleeves, was so popular and so distinctive that the style has generally become associated with her.

[10]: 105  Wrap dresses achieved their peak of popularity in the mid to late 1970s, and the design, essentially a robe, has been credited with becoming a symbol of women's liberation in the 1970s.