Serious Fashion

The juxtaposition of the three words ‘fashion,’ ‘history’ and ‘nation’ in the title of Antonia Finnane’s study of Chinese clothing indicates the ambitious nature of her richly illustrated book. Her account is an engaging one, based in detailed analysis of the social and political circumstances that shaped not only what people wore but the body shapes they cultivated as well. Finnane, an associate professor of history at the University of Melbourne, tells us that her narrative of vestimentary change across a century or more in China is aimed at showing how ‘the relationship between national politics and fashion is not simple, predictable or steady’, in tandem with an analysis of how technology, industry, commerce and modern communications each played a significant part in changing Chinese styles of dress. The emphasis she places on nation-building as a motive force in Chinese fashion is succinctly stated in the concluding lines of her introduction:

[F]or much of the twentieth century, China was mired in a constantly transmutating struggle for its survival, its sovereignty, and its international standing. Its citizens might blithely disregard sumptuary and sartorial rules and regulations, but like their counterparts the world over, they generally heeded the call of the nation. In complex, sometimes unobvious or contradictory ways, they wore the nation on their backs.