A01=Antonia Finnane
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Asian history
Author_Antonia Finnane
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Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=HBJF
Category=NHF
China
COP=United Kingdom
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
fashion
Language_English
Mao
PA=Available
Price_€10 to €20
PS=Active
softlaunch
Product details
- ISBN 9781787387225
- Dimensions: 138 x 216mm
- Publication Date: 18 May 2023
- Publisher: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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Historians have long regarded fashion as something peculiarly Western. In this surprising, sumptuously illustrated book, Antonia Finnane challenges this view, which she argues is based on nineteenth- and twentieth-century representations of Chinese dress as traditional and unchanging. Fashions, she shows, were part of Chinese life in the late imperial era, even if a fashion industry was not then apparent. In the early twentieth century the key features of modern fashion became evident, particularly in Shanghai, and rapidly changing dress styles showed the effects. The volatility of Chinese dress throughout the twentieth century matched vicissitudes in national politics. Finnane describes in detail 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 gave way finally 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.
Antonia Finnane is a historian of China and honorary professorial fellow at the University of Melbourne. She is currently writing a new book, How to Make a Mao Suit.
