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  • Flowers,feathers and fashion: hair, nature and design innovation in late Qing China

Cheang, Sarah, 2024, Book Section, Flowers,feathers and fashion: hair, nature and design innovation in late Qing China In: Harrison-Hall, Jessica, (ed.) China's 1800s: Material and Visual Cultre. British Museum Research Publications (241). British Museum, London, pp. 166-175. ISBN 978-0861592418

Abstract or Description:

This chapter is published new edited volume on innovation and material culture in nineteenth century China. It is part of the research activities that accompanied the British Museum’s major exhibition exploring the cultural achievements of late Qing China (China’s Hidden Century 18 May-8 October 2023). My chapter focuses on fashion and hair as an important location of Chinese modernity and technical innovation. It examines what hair pins and hair decorations can tell us about the ideas of innovation when they fall into the realms of fashion, nature and the body. Fashion is an inescapable dynamic of cultural change and cultural identity, and a crucial driver of style and innovation. Fashion’s associations women’s bodies, commerce, surface effect and ephemerality, however, have led to an awkward positioning within narratives of design reform.
This chapter focusses on the materials involved with late nineteenth century women’s hair decorations in China, using neglected examples in European museums alongside Chinese paintings and photographs of fashionable women of the late Qing. The hairpins are highly colourful and designed to shake and swing at the slightest motion of the head. The chapter explores the body politics of being a woman to deepen our understanding of the experience of wearing these elaborate and lively objects in the context of Confucian values that stressed modesty and stillness. Analysis of museum archives further shows how and why late Qing women’s hair ornaments were collected in international exhibitions and museums as exemplars of Chinese craft and manufacturing. I argue that these reflect a European interest in Chinese hairpin materials and making processes that reveals their relevance to wider nineteenth century debates about technical innovation in manufacturing and the decorative arts.

Subjects: Other > Historical and Philosophical studies > V100 History by period > V140 Modern History > V144 Modern History 1800-1899
Other > Historical and Philosophical studies > V200 History by area > V240 Asian History
Other > Historical and Philosophical studies > V300 History by topic > V370 History of Design
School or Centre: School of Arts & Humanities
Funders: Arts and Humanities Research Council, The David Percival Foundation
Identification Number or DOI: 10.48582/pma9-2603
Additional Information:

This book is open access. Description of the volume as a whole:
Material and visual culture of China’s long 19th century is understandably overshadowed by the traumatic warfare, land shortages, famines and uprisings which impacted the lives of a population of around 400 million people. However, innovation can be seen in material culture (including print, painting, calligraphy, textiles, fashion, jewellery, ceramics, lacquer, glass, arms and armour, rugs, silver, money, and photography) during a century in which China’s art, literature, crafts and technology faced unprecedented exposure to global influences. Despite this however, until recently, the 19th century in China has been often defined – and dismissed – as an era of cultural decline.

Building on the critically acclaimed British Museum exhibition China’s hidden century: 1796–1912, this publication seeks to redefine perceptions about 19th-century Qing arts. Essays by some of the world’s leading authorities on Qing culture reveal the social, cultural, religious, creative, economic and political history of makers, users, owners and collectors. Areas of focus include painting and patronage; calligraphy and seal carving; commerce and fashion; and craft technology and technology ensuring that the book will be a manual for the arts of China’s long 19th century.

Date Deposited: 29 Jan 2025 16:20
Last Modified: 29 Jan 2025 16:20
URI: https://researchonline.rca.ac.uk/id/eprint/6085
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