WEEK 3. FASHION AND DESIGN IN CHINA
CHINESE MEDIA AND CITIES 19 & 21 SEPTEMBER 2017 KEYWORDS
• Fashion • Design • Identity • Brand • Creative Industry, Fashion Industry • Fashion Education, Events • Chineseness MAIN QUESTIONS
• What is fashion? How does the fashion system work? • How can we understand brands? • How have Chinese clothing designs changed last hundred years in terms of the education system, the retail market, the events and the public perception of fashion? • How have sociopolitical changes influenced fashion in China? • How has ‘Chineseness’ been represented by Chinese fashion designers? Peng Liyuan, Michelle Obama and Melania Trump
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/michelle-obama-chinese-first-lady- pen-liyuan-wow-china-state-dinner
http://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/fashion/winning-style
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy- defence/article/1860734/5-differences-between-peng-liyuan-and- michelle-obama
“Each time Xi’s wife Peng Liyuan makes a public appearance, Chinese netizens take to social media in droves to comment on her appearance – most writing elaborate praise and stating what a relief it is to finally have a globally “presentable” first lady.” “Peng’s very polished and presentable look is a soft power representation of a new China” “Peng’s style is likewise scrutinised by the Chinese public and now the world media. Remember when mainland fashion label Exception de Mixmind was plucked from obscurity and thrust into the global limelight when Peng wore the brand during her and husband Xi Jinping’s first official international trip?” Zhang Jing, fashion editor at the South China Morning Post (GLOBAL) FASHION MAGAZINES IN CHINA (AND IN KOREA) • http://www.rayli.com.cn/
• ttp://www.vogue.co.kr/in magazine/inmagazine_vi ew.asp?menu_id=020902 00&in_type=2
• http://www.vogue.com. cn/magazine/
• http://www.vogue.com.cn/magazine • http://fashion.sina.com.cn/s/ce/2014-03-11/070637084.shtml • http://english.chinafashionweek.org/hdrc_en/ • http://chinafashioncollective.com/default1.htm • http://www.businessoffashion.com/2014/01/female-fashion- addicts-change-chinas-19-billion-market-retail.html • http://www.chinafashiontrends.com/ • China Fashion Week Video • http://luxurysociety.com/articles/2012/04/the-top-50-most- searched-for-luxury-brands-in-china • http://www.shanghaistylefile.com/category/brands-2/ • http://wilddesign.info/tuhaojin-color-trend-china/ APPROACHES TO FASHION
• Practical Function • Identity (Collective or Individual) • Industry (Creative Industry: brand, fashion design…) • Institution (Educational Institute, Professional Association) ……. WHAT IS FASHION?
New
Change for Change’s sake
Irrational?
Transient
“Clothing signs and symbols, which tend to be somewhat stationary, fashion reflects the sociocultural dynamics of the moment at a more frenzied pace.” p. 114 SOCIAL OR INDIVIDUAL
• Group identity (belonging)
• Individual characteristics
Identity Identity is multiple, fluid and fragmented rather than uniform, fixed and coherent, and—if it exists at all—a matter of almost theatrical performance. (Judith Butler Gender Trouble 1990, “The gendered body is performative.” IDEOLOGY OF CONSUMPTION
• Liberation and Freedom “Spectacular environments have important effects on consumer agency and that although such environments offer the consumer a degree of liberation, such liberation is instantly commodified. The consumer is certainly not entirely coerced by spaces for consumption, but the experiences that are framed for them through consumption inevitably limit the avenues through which individual agency is experienced and expressed.” • The Unique Self “They celebrate difference, but they do so by imposing uniformity.” • Capitalism as the only alternative “Consumption is ideological insofar as it is presented to us as the only solution to the traumatic consequences of a failed modernity and a failed industrialisation.” “Spaces for consumption naturalise the capitalist system so it appears to be the only possible alternative.” Steven Miles, Spaces for Consumption BRAND
http://brandz.com/charting/29
• http://www.therichest.com/expensive- lifestyle/fashion/10-most-powerful-luxury-fashion- brands-in-the-world/?view=all REPRESENTATIVE CHINESE CLOTHES? • QingQIPAO (esp. Banner旗袍 People,CHEONGSAM Qiren’s) Clothes (长衫 male) • Current Qipao from the 1920s FASHION AND POLITICS
• Zhongshan fu (zhuang)
(Sun Zhongshan) Sun Yat-sen (1924) Sanmin zhuyi， Three Principles of the People (民族 民权 民生） • Mao Suit (Mao Zedong) a symbol of proletarian unity NATIONALISM IN DRESS
Long after Sun Yat-sen's death, popular mythology assigned a revolutionary and patriotic significance to the Sun Yat-sen suit, even though it was essentially a foreign- style garment.
• Four Pockets: represent the Four Virtues in 管子 (Guǎnzi) Propriety, Justice, Honesty, a sense of shame. • Five Buttons: represent the five branches of the government (executive, legislative, judicial, control, and examination) in the constitution of the Republic of China. • Three Buttons on the Cuffs: represent Sun Yat-sen’s Three Principles of the People (三民主義), nationalism, people’s rights, people’s livelihood. FOOT BINDING IN PRE-MODERN CHINA 2
1
3 https://www.shanghaitang.com/# QUESTIONS
• How would you distinguish a fashion designer from a tailor?
• Do you think Chengsam (Qipao) and Zhongshan suit look Chinese? What made them “Chinese”?
• How is “Chineseness” represented in the three pictures? How are they different?
• Analyse Ma Ke’s clothes. http://www.designboom.com/art/ma-ke-wu-yong-chinese- fashion/ HAUTE COUTURE, STREET FASHION, SUBCULTURE
• “the fashion system itself was seen as central in incorporating outsider or street styles into the mainstream forms of dress and appearance…. ‘hijacking’ street culture and in particular punk, into haute couture style in revolt or revolting style against dominant culture” (Tim Edwards Fashion in Focus, p. 109)
• “the fashion industry brutally exploits the Third World in selling its otherness as exotica or pornography, in stealing its cusoms and designs, and in exploiting its labour and skills, is well known and easily acknowledged.” (Edwards, p. 111) SUBCULTURE
go against nature Interrupting the process of ‘normalization’ Offending the ‘silent majority’ Challenging the principle of unity and cohesion Contradicting the myth of consensus Social control of subcultural activities as ‘deviant’ via the state and the media The commodification of subculture subculture mainstream culture? No sense of oppositional or counter cultural allegiance More fragmented, less hegemonic and also more mutually influential Contemporary subcultures will choose to buy certain clothes or wear them in certain ways but not actually create them. (Edwards p. 109, p. 113) “POST-SUBCULTURE”
• The problematisation of group identification • The increasing implosion of any boundary between a dominant/hegemonic culture and any given subculture • Transient and dynamic rather than long lasting or static • Interweave, overlap and appear less distinct • Celebration of a particular set of values or mores rather than opposition to the dominant set of ideals “having a good time” MODERN/POSTMODERN
• Modern “a fixed meaning determined by pre-existing structures of understanding” ex) a business suit as symbol of commerce and conservatism
• Postmodern “a sense of surface, ambiguity and shifting boundaries” FASHION IN CHINA • From a tailor (caifeng 裁缝) to a fashion (shizhuang 时装) designer From Tailor’s Shop to Fashion Shop • Benbang (Chinese-style tailors’ group 本帮) and Hongbang (Western-style tailors’ group 红帮) FASHION DESIGNERS AND FIRMS IN CHINA
• Hongxiang (The first fashion firm in China, est. 1917) • Jin Taijun (The first fashion designer in China, b. 1930) FASHION EDUCATION IN CHINA
• 1950s and 60s The Central Academy of Arts & Design Academy of Arts & Design, Qinghua University) • 1980s Suzhou Institute of Silk Science ( The Academy of Arts & Design, Suzhou University) Zhejiang Institute of Silk Science ( Zhejiang University of Science & Technology) Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts ( China Academy of Fine Arts) China Textile University ( Donghua University, Shanghai) Northwest Institute of Textile Engineering, Xi’an FASHION EDUCATION IN CHINA
• Separation of ‘drawing’ courses and ‘making’ courses isolation of the two camps of the ‘arts camp’ and the ‘tailors camp’ FASHION EVENTS IN CHINA
• Dalian Fashion Festival (1988)—the Concept of Fashion City • China International Clothes and Accessory Fair (CHIC, 1993)—the Brother Cup International Young Fashion Designer Contest ( Hempel Cup International Young Fashion • Designers Contest, 2004, The Golden Fashion Designer Award) • Shanghai International Fashion Festival (1995)— The China Cup From trade fair to fashion week From manufacturing center to fashion and branding theme From foreign markets to domestic markets From products to brands GENERATIONS OF FASHION DESIGNERS
• 1980s: The First Generation—Pioneers Wang Xinyuan, Wu Haiyan, Frankie Xie, Liu Yang Chineseness—’The national is the international’
Wu Haiyan • 1990s:The Second Generation—Practitioners Professionalized, Commercialized and Diversified Liangzi (Liang Yihong), Ma Ke, Wang Yiyang
WUYONG MA KE http://www.designboom.com/art/ma-ke-wu-yong- chinese-fashion/ • 2000s: The Third Generation—Prospects • Lu Kun, Ji Ji GLOBAL FASHION BRANDS IN CHINA
• Fast-fashion brands like UNIQLO, ZARA, H&M, GAP, FOREVER 21 • Luxury brands like LV and CHANEL "Luxury brands' expansion has slowed because of various factors such as slower economic growth and the anti- corruption campaign.“
• Retail Spaces “Over the next three years, 40 million square metres of shopping mall development is expected to come on stream across the mainland.” South China Morning Post 11 June 2015 http://www.acnnewswire.com/press-release/english/25319/uniqlo-opens-world's-first-magic-for-all-store-in-shanghai CONTEMPORARY FASHION DESIGNERS
• http://stylecaster.com/chinese-fashion- designers/#slide-7