This edited volume on radical dress reforms in East Asia takes a fresh look at the symbols and languages of modernity in dress and body. Dress reform movements around the turn of the twentieth century in the region have received little critical attention as a multicultural discourse of labor, body, gender identity, colonialism, and government authority. With contributions by leading experts of costume/textile history of China, Korea, and Japan, this book presents up-to-date scholarship using diverse methodologies in costume history, history of consumption, and international trade.
Thematically organized into sections exploring the garments and uniforms, accessories, fabrics, and fashion styles of Asia, this edited volume offers case studies for students and scholars in an ever-expanding field of material culture including, but not limited to, economic history, visual culture, art history, history of journalism, and popular culture. Fashion, Identity, and Power in Modern Asia stimulates further research on the impact of modernity and imperialism in neglected areas such as military uniform, school uniform, women¿s accessories, hairstyles, and textile trade.

Kyunghee Pyun is Assistant Professor of History of Art at Fashion Institute of Technology, SUNY, USA.

Aida Yuen Wong is Nathan Cummings and Robert B. and Beatrice C. Mayer Professor in Fine Arts at Brandeis University, USA.

1. Introduction (Kyunghee Pyun and Aida Yuen Wong)

Part 1. Garments and Uniforms

2. Dressing Up During the Meiji Restoration: A Perspective on Fukusei (Clothing Reform) (Yoshinori Osakabe)

3. Dress Policy and Western-Style Court Attire in Modern Korea (Kyungmee Lee)

4. Monarchist Ambition in China's New Republic: Illustrated Manual of Dress for Ritual Sacrifice for Yuan Shikai's Presidency (Aida Yuen Wong)

6. A Spectacle of Authority on the Streets: Police Uniforms in Imperial Japan and Colonial Korea (Michiyo Nomura)

Part 2. Accessories

7. Gendered Differences in Modern Korea Towards Western Luxuries (Kyeongmi Joo)

8. Affecting Grandiosity: Manchuness and the Liangbatou Hairdo-turned-Headpiece Circa 1870s to 1930s (Gary Wang)

9. The Lady's Fan: Fashion Accessories and Modern Femininity in Republican China (Mei Mei Rado)

10. Fashioning the Foreign: Using English Woolens in Nineteenth-Century China (Rachel Silberstein)

11. Woolen Cloths and the Boom of Fancy Kimono: Worsted Muslin and the Development of "Kawaii" Designs in Japan (Seiko Sugimoto)

12. Hybrid Dandyism: European Woolen Fabric in East Asia (Kyunghee Pyun)

Part 4. Fashion Styles

13. Monks in Modern Dress: The Dilemma of Being Japanese and Asian (Brij Tankha)

14. Style as Identity: Fashion in Taiwan in the Early Twentieth Century (Chun-mei Sun)

15. Clothes Make the Woman: Cheongsam and Chinese Identity in Hong Kong (Sandy Ng)