Hardback
June 30, 2020
9780295747187
English
296
89 color illus., 3 maps, 8 tables
10.00 Inches (US)
7.00 Inches (US)
$65.00 USD, £54.00 GBP
v2.1 Reference

A Fashionable Century

Textile Artistry and Commerce in the Late Qing

By Rachel Silberstein
University of Washington Press
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.

About the Author

Rachel Silberstein is a lecturer in the Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington.

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 The Social Life of Inkstones: Artisans and Scholars in Early Qing China

University of Washington Press

9780295747187 : a-fashionable-century-silberstein
Hardback
June 30, 2020
$65.00 USD
Add to Cart

Other Titles in ART / Asian / Chinese

9780295746883 : what-the-emperor-built-campbell

What the Emperor Built

Architecture and Empire in the Early Ming
Aurelia Campbell
Jun 2020 - University of Washington Press
$65.00 USD - Hardback
9780295747026 : citizens-of-beauty-edwards

Citizens of Beauty

Drawing Democratic Dreams in Republican China
Louise Edwards
May 2020 - University of Washington Press
$95.00 USD - Hardback
$30.00 USD - Paperback / softback
9780295746364 : eulogy-for-burying-a-crane-and-the-art-of-chinese-calligraphy-xue

Eulogy for Burying a Crane and the Art of Chinese Calligraphy

Lei Xue
Jan 2020 - University of Washington Press
$65.00 USD - Hardback
See All 7 Titles in ART / Asian / Chinese