The Chinese Fashion Industry: An Ethnographic Approach
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Overview
Less than three decades ago, when the Chinese bought cloth or clothes, they would have had to use a government-issued coupon. Today the Chinese fashion industry is one of the most dynamic in the world - it not only supplies fashions to the increasingly discerning domestic market, but also provides one-third of the clothing sold in the global market. How did this phenomenal transition come about? What can the growth of the Chinese fashion industry tell us about the post-Mao China? What roles do the local and the global play in the dramatic changes?
This book offers a historically informed, ethnographically grounded and interpretive analysis of contemporary Chinese fashion and the fashion industry. It examines the interplay of state politics, market forces, local social and cultural factors, and the global political economy, both in the rise of the Chinese fashion industry and in the life and work of Chinese fashion professionals.
As the first ethnographic account of the Chinese fashion industry in the post-Mao era, The Chinese Fashion Industry combines first-hand accounts with sophisticated cultural analysis to offer new insights, and will be of interest to students and scholars of fashion, anthropology and China.
This is the first anthropological study of the contemporary Chinese fashion and textile industries from high-end designer clothing to mass manufacture.
Broad coverage, exploring the how and why of China’s role as the world’s largest exporter of textile and apparel products as well as its domestic fashion industry
Examines Chinese fashion from a new theoretical angle, but written with both students and scholars in mind
Explores key topics of globalization, modernity and capitalism through their historical, political and economic contexts; interviews with designers; trade disputes; Chinese Fashion Week; and the meaning of contemporary garments such as Tangzhuang jacket
I. Introduction
II. Rise of the Chinese Fashion Industry
Chapter 1: The Growth of Chinese Textile and Apparel Industries
Chapter 2: What Do Changing Chinese Fashions Really Tell Us?
III. Creating Fashion in China
Chapter 3: Designing a National Style: The Tangzhuang Phenomenon
Chapter 4: For the Sake of Art or for the Market? The Cultural Economy of Fashion Design
Chapter 5: Creating Fashion on the Runway, Chinese Style
Chapter 6: Making Clothes for International Markets
IV. Conclusion: Clothing, Modernization, and Globalization
Bibliography
Index
The analyses are timely and important, and Zhao shows conclusively that many of our assumptions about fashion, the market, and modernization do not apply simplistically in the case of China. The book is short and readable and would be of interest to anthropologists working on material culture, globalization, and fashion and would be accessible to students and the general public.
The book is a “must-read” for anyone who wants to know about China’s fashion scene. Zhao has contributed many unique and interesting insights that are informed by his scholarly background in anthropology. His ability to challenge established theories and traditional views deserves admiration from both scholars and general readers. Another noteworthy point is Zhao’s accessible yet informed
writing style. This is not just a book for scholars in the field, but also an interesting text for anyone who wants to understand more about Chinese political, social and economic culture, as it has applied to the fashion industry.
- Title: The Chinese Fashion Industry: An Ethnographic Approach
- Author: Jianhua Zhao
- Series: Dress, Body, Culture
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
- Print Publication Date: 2013
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Pages: 224
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781847889386, 9781847889355, 1847889352, 1847889387
- Resource ID: LLS:9781847889386
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2025-04-22T11:12:46Z
Jianhua Zhao is Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology, University of Louisville, USA.