Fashioning Chinese Women: Empire to Modernity

Fashioning Chinese Women: Empire to Modernity accompanies the first major exhibition outside China to comprehensively examine modern Chinese women’s fashion from the late Qing dynasty through the 1960s. Drawing exclusively from LACMA’s permanent collection, the publication explores how women’s dress evolved amid seismic shifts in Chinese society. Through more than seventy rare ensembles, it traces transformations in silhouette, tailoring, and textile innovation, revealing the ways fashion responded to globalization, modernization, and women’s changing roles.

Two essays, as well as an introduction by Michaela Hansen and Sharon Sadako Takeda, offer original research and nuanced perspectives. Mei Mei Rado investigates fashion’s interplay with rapid historical and cultural changes in China, while Hansen analyzes how industrial and technological advances reshaped Chinese textile design. The preface is by fashion designer Jason Wu, who customized the exhibition’s custom mannequins.