Changing Clothes in China: Fashion, History, Nation - Rilegato

Finnane, Antonia

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0231143508 ISBN 13: 9780231143509

Casa editrice: Columbia Univ Pr, 2007

Riassunto

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 surprising, sumptuously 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.

Though foreigners who traveled to China in the early decades of the twentieth century came away with the impression that Chinese dress was simple and monotone, the key features of modern fashion were beginning to emerge, especially in Shanghai. Men in blue gowns donned felt caps and leather shoes, girls began to wear fitted jackets and narrow pants, and homespun garments gave way to machine-woven cloth, often made in foreign lands. These innovations marked the start of a far-reaching vestimentary revolution that would transform the clothing culture in urban and much of rural China over the next half century.

Through Finnane's meticulous 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 brilliantly connects China's modernization and global visibility with changes in dress, offering a vivid portrait of the complex, subtle, and sometimes contradictory ways the people of China have worn their nation on their backs.

Su questo libro

L'autore:

Antonia Finnane is reader in history in the School of Historical Studies at the University of Melbourne. She studied at Sydney University, the Beijing Language Institute, and Nanjing University before completing a Ph.D. in Chinese history at the Australian National University. She is the author of Speaking of Yangzhou: A Chinese City, 1550-1850, which was awarded the 2006 Joseph Levenson Book Award for a work on pre-1900 China.

Product Description:

Book by Antonia Finnane

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Columbia Univ Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0231143508
• ISBN 13: 9780231143509
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 359