Clothes That Matter: Fashioning Modernity in Late Qing Novels

Author: Zamperini Paola  

Publisher: Bloomsbury Journals (formerly Berg Journals)

ISSN: 1751-7419

Source: Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture, Vol.5, Iss.2, 2001-05, pp. : 195-214

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Abstract

This essay analyzes the predicaments of modernity and modernization in China by deconstructing literary representations of clothes in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Looking at garments in their fictional representations allows us then to see how a pre-existing discourse about fashion became, at the turn of the century, a vital site at which to build and define modern identities. The intersection of this modern identity with fashion(s) and clothing is quite clear in the novels of this period. It is within this context that the West and all its imports, including Western-style clothing, emerge as useful foils to depict China's political and economic shortcomings vis-à-vis Western powers and to question “traditional” ways of life. Chinese writers deploy them then as at once emblematic of a foreign civilization worth emulating and symptomatic of the decay of traditional Chinese culture. Fashion discourses and representations are thus a definite trait of the literature of this period that can allow us to probe deeper into the ideas and feelings of both writers and readers alike about the changing landscapes of late Qing China.