Hardback | |
June 30, 2020 | |
9780295747187 | |
English | |
296 | |
89 color illus., 3 maps, 8 tables | |
10.00 Inches (US) | |
7.00 Inches (US) | |
2.35 Pounds (US) | |
$65.00 USD, £52.00 GBP | |
v2.1 Reference | |
A Fashionable Century
Textile Artistry and Commerce in the Late Qing
Clothing and accessories from nineteenth-century China reveal much about women's participation in the commercialization of textile handicrafts and the flourishing of urban popular culture. Focusing on women's work and fashion, A Fashionable Century presents an array of visually compelling clothing and accessories neglected by traditional histories of Chinese dress, examining these products' potential to illuminate issues of gender and identity.
In the late Qing, the expansion of production systems and market economies transformed the Chinese fashion system, widening access to fashionable techniques, materials, and imagery. Challenging the conventional production model, in which women embroidered items at home, Silberstein sets fashion within a process of commercialization that created networks of urban guilds, commercial workshops, and subcontracted female workers. These networks gave rise to new trends influenced by performance and prints, and they offered women opportunities to participate in fashion and contribute to local economies and cultures.
Rachel Silberstein draws on vernacular and commercial sources, rather than on the official and imperial texts prevalent in Chinese dress history, to demonstrate that in these fascinating objects—regulated by market desires, rather than imperial edict—fashion formed at the intersection of commerce and culture.
In the late Qing, the expansion of production systems and market economies transformed the Chinese fashion system, widening access to fashionable techniques, materials, and imagery. Challenging the conventional production model, in which women embroidered items at home, Silberstein sets fashion within a process of commercialization that created networks of urban guilds, commercial workshops, and subcontracted female workers. These networks gave rise to new trends influenced by performance and prints, and they offered women opportunities to participate in fashion and contribute to local economies and cultures.
Rachel Silberstein draws on vernacular and commercial sources, rather than on the official and imperial texts prevalent in Chinese dress history, to demonstrate that in these fascinating objects—regulated by market desires, rather than imperial edict—fashion formed at the intersection of commerce and culture.
About the Author
Reviews
"A Fashionable Century is not only deft in its writing and visual analysis, but this well-written book is itself a beautiful object."—New Books in East Asian Studies (NBN)
Endorsements
"Interweaving visual and material culture, A Fashionable Century adds significantly to our understanding of gender and class outside the court and the capital."—Kristina Kleutghen, Washington University in St. Louis
"Bravo! This magnificent book is bold in conception, meticulous in research, and elegant in writing and visual analysis. Fashion and nineteenth-century Chinese society will never look the same again."—Dorothy Ko, author of
University of Washington Press | |
|
|
Hardback | |
June 30, 2020 | |
9780295747187 | |
English | |
296 | |
89 color illus., 3 maps, 8 tables | |
10.00 Inches (US) | |
7.00 Inches (US) | |
2.35 Pounds (US) | |
$65.00 USD, £52.00 GBP | |
v2.1 Reference | |
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