Changing Clothes in China
Subtitle: Fashion, History, Nation
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: December 16, 2007
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 360
ISBN-13: 9780231143509
Subjects: China - History - 20th Century; History; History - General History; History: World; Asia - China; Asia - General; Beauty & Grooming - General; Fashion; General; Social History; History / Asia; Customs & Traditions; China; Clothing and dress
Description: "Based largely on nineteenth and twentieth-century representations of Chinese dress as traditional and unchanging, historians have long regarded fashion as something peculiarly Western. But in this illustrated book, Antonia Finnane proves that vibrant fashions were a vital part of Chinese life in the late imperial era, when well-to-do men and women showed a keen awareness of what was up-to-date." "Through Finnane's research, we are able to see how the close-fitting jacket and high collar of the 1911 Revolutionary period, the skirt and jacket-blouse of the May Fourth era, and the military style popular in the Cultural Revolution led to the variegated, globalized wardrobe of today. She connects China's modernization and global visibility with changes in dress, offering a portrait of the complex, subtle, and sometimes contradictory ways the people of China have worn their nation on their backs."--Jacket.