Chinese Dress: From the Qing Dynasty to the Present Day

Love most of the pages in color and show the costumes in details

Marvelous in its breadth and scope, Valery Garrett regals the reader with over three hundred years of Chinese dress and its historical context. Evident is the author's passion for the beautiful garments worn in China's last dynasty to the present. This phenomenal book is a welcome addition to scholars and collectors alike and should be required reading for those interested in Chinese art and history.

A comprehensive work on Chinese textiles in the last Dynasty of China and the early 20th Century which is profusely illustrated. It is an excellent book for any collector or person interested in this field.Highly recommended. This book doesn't repeat information which has been previously published but gives a fresh view.

A an excellent and beautifully illustrated book on Chinese costume covering the last 350 years

This book is very good value for the price. It is a nice size and has lots of high quality photos of clothing artifacts. All of the chapters are interesting, even the ones I initially thought I wouldn't be that interested in. The layout is nice too. I enjoyed reading this book a lot, aside from the following caveats:Although this book is the 2019 edition, it only covers up to 2006 and the chapter on modern fashions is limited. The author makes it sound like Chinese today have totally forgone traditional Chinese clothing and customs, which is inaccurate. The author doesn't even talk about the Hanfu Movement's revival of traditional Chinese clothing amongst young people. There have also been revivals of traditional crafts and fabrics, but it's not mentioned. The success of Chinese designers is measured by whether or not they are a worldwide brand, so she concludes that Chinese designers are not successful. Guo Pei is not even mentioned.Another thing that surprised me was that the author perpetuates the racist stereotype:"The Chinese are masters of copying but can be short on originality, probably as a result of past history...Regulations governed dress in feudal China...so traditional dress changed very little. There was not much freedom of expression for improvisation. Styles did not go out of fashion."What? The whole book just showed amazing creativity and craftsmanship, rich traditions and beliefs, from only the most recent times...and then she says that there's no originality or creativity?! If you look at the entire clothing history of China, there is so much creativity!There are a few noticeable spelling errors throughout the book. I expected more from Tuttle Publishing in this regard.

Beautifully illustrated and well documented. Full of interesting facts.

Generation gaps are a fact of modern life, but nowhere have they been as wide or frequent as in China, where nearly every decade has seen Chinese society remade to an astonishing extent. One area in which these enormous political and social changes can be traced is in clothing: from dragon robes to cheongsams, Mao suits to Yves Saint Laurent, garments tell the story of China's modern history.Valery Garrett, the author of eight previous books on the subject and a doyenne of the field, is well placed to trace that fascinating evolution. In Chinese Dress: From the Qing Dynasty to the Present, she has produced her magnum opus.Qing dress was about rank and control: one could gauge exactly where a subject stood in the imperial, civil, military or social hierarchy by a quick and careful study of robe, hat and accessories (designer handbags not yet having been invented). A massive work of regulations and penalties on the subject was promulgated by the Qianlong Emperor to ensure that Manchu customs were not "subsumed and diluted by Chinese ways." Using the first of more than five hundred gorgeous, mostly colour, illustrations, Chinese Dress explains how to "read" such key exemplars of this system as embroidered "dragon robes" and "mandarin squares." A rich resource for the experienced scholar, these chapters will open the eyes of those new to the intricacies of imperial dress in a way akin to first learning characters.With much talk of cuffs and vamps and hems, a book so specialized runs the risk of glazing the eyes of the sartorially clueless, but the veteran author wisely spices the narrative with both the Chinese history needed to place the fashions in context and many interesting asides. Thus the perennially fascinating practice of footbinding is explored in every disturbing detail: braided ankle covers, hidden heel supports and puttees just part of the paraphernalia required.The focus of Chinese Dress, however, and where it breaks new ground, is 20th-century fashion and the dramatic political and social changes that shaped its evolution. This second half of the book draws on the author's explorations in '70 and `80s New Territories Hong Kong, and her interest in the dress and culture of ordinary people; the garments and accessories collected during these efforts now reside at the Victoria & Albert Museum.A short review can only hint at the contents of Chinese Dress. Wedding, military and peasant attire, hats, shoes, jewelry and accessories are all discussed and illustrated in sumptuous detail. Children's wear, with its focus on "locking the child to the earth" and protecting him (too rarely her) from theft by evil spirits is particularly fascinating: so too the culture's elaborate funerary practices.Chinese Dress is a beautifully presented and accessible work of scholarship that retells the remarkable story of China's modern transformation from a unique perspective.

I have many books on Qing Dynasty Costumes. However, most of them focus on the dragon robes and accessories of the imperial court.This book is excellent because it ties in the subtle interface between Manchu and Han Chinese dress, from the imperial family, through the mandarins to the common people. The examples and contents are sufficiently comprehensive to do justice to this complex subject.

Sehr schönes Buch ! :)

Love this book!After binge watching the amazing tv series Ruyi’s love in the royal palace, I wanted to learn more about the different costumes. There are lots of great pictures and enough information to give you a good start in understanding the complicated dress codes of the Qing dynasty through to more modern Chinese fashion. Would recommend!

Excellent research material

very useful for who study qing dynasty.

excellent, very informative text and illus