Changing Clothes In China: Fashion, History, Nation
The Age
Saturday February 23, 2008
Changing Clothes in China: Fashion, History, Nation
Antonia Finnane UNSW Press, $59.95NO, THIS IS NOT A guide to the correct way to change your clothes in China but a critical exploration of the changing face of fashion in China over the centuries, what this says about Chinese society during those periods of change, and western attitudes to China. Antonia Finnane, now at Melbourne University (having previously studied in China), has written a comprehensive, academic study - but an accessible one. Movements in Chinese dress are looked at in historical context. The Nationalist era with its rising capitalism before the Communist revolution), for example, saw the rise of the famous and, in China, contentious qipao - much featured in the 2001 film In the Mood for Love. With the revolution, of course, came the fashion equivalent of doctrinal purity - standardised cadre attire. Finnane, among other things, also looks at the idea of "fashion" as being both a western invention (and western property) and the way this has affected European perceptions of China and fashion.
© 2008 The Age