Chinese Looks: Fashion, Performance, Race

by Sean Metzger

From yellow-face performance in the 19th century to Jackie Chan in the 21st, Chinese Looks examines articles of clothing and modes of adornment as a window on how American views of China have changed in the past 150 years. Sean Metzger provides a cultural history of three iconic objects in theatrical and cinematic performance: the queue, or man's hair braid; the woman's suit known as the qipao; and the Mao suit. Each object emerges at a pivotal moment in US-China relations, indexing shifts in the balance of power between the two nations. Metzger shows how aesthetics, gender, politics, economics, and race are interwoven and argues that close examination of particular forms of dress can help us think anew about gender and modernity.

280 pages, Paperback

First published April 30, 2014

Reviews

[Gold Dust · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very dry. I didn’t like how the author kept bringing up homosexuality (53, 77, 89), sometimes reading homosexuality into a male friendship that wasn’t sexual at all.

[Biju P.R.]

I got this book from a library. Yes good book but i just flipped through the pages. i was looking for some information on dress and politics. and by chance i got it. good book. I referred it for my upcoming book Lovescape. particularly, in Asian context, costumes and looks are important connection. in a patriarchal social context, dress and it affiliate gendered ideology will cater to a man's world to the disabilities of women. This book was terribly useful for my Dressed Nation which is my essay in the context dress and Indian nation in Lovescape. Lovely book. Dressed Nation #Lovescape