Dressing for the Times: Fashion in Tang Dynasty China (618-907)

During the Tang dynasty, an increased capacity for change created a new value system predicated on the accumulation of wealth and the obsolescence of things that is best understood as fashion. Increased wealth among Tang elites was paralleled by a greater investment in clothes, which imbued clothes with new meaning. Intellectuals, who viewed heightened commercial activity and social mobility as symptomatic of an unstable society, found such profound changes in the vestimentary landscape unsettling. For them, a range of troubling developments, including crisis in the central government, deep suspicion of the newly empowered military and professional class, and anxiety about waste and obsolescence were all subsumed under the trope of fashionable dressing. The clamor of these intellectuals about the widespread desire to be "current" reveals the significant space fashion inhabited in the empire - a space that was repeatedly gendered female. This dissertation considers fashion as a system of social practices that is governed by material relations - a system that is also embroiled in the politics of the gendered self and the body. I demonstrate that this notion of fashion is the best way to understand the process through which competition for status and self-identification among elites gradually broke away from the imperial court and its system of official ranks. Out of status instability grew a desire for novelty that transformed the dressed body into an object for status display during the late eighth and ninth centuries. Sartorial savvy became a critical arena for the articulation of wealth and power by the old aristocracy and new military or professional elite alike. A foundational aim of my dissertation is to understand how fashion contributed to a new system for ordering the world in Tang dynasty China. By the ninth century, changes in the Tang economic and political structure enabled the rise of a new fashionable elite whose politics of appearance were driven more by the luxury silk economy than by the old symbolic order. I argue that the emergence of fashion was intimately related to developments in the silk industry, which not only reached record production levels during this period, but also manufactured fabrics that were unprecedented in design and complexity. The rise of private silk workshops in the latter half of the dynasty made silk more available to the new military and professional elites. As consumers of novel silks, these elites propelled the silk industry forward and with it, fashion. The new silk economy was personified in a popular literary trope of the ninth century: the impoverished weaving girl slaving away in the silk workshops as an icon of the damages engendered by the excessive consumption of luxury. With this project, I illustrate how the history of Tang fashion serves as an important prism into the workings of the Tang state, the productive lives of premodern women, and the formation of social and cultural identities during a dynamic period of world history. My approach is interdisciplinary, informed by economic history, art history, literature, and textile technology. To my analysis of Tang poetry, sumptuary laws, and economic treatises, I add careful examination of the visual representations of dress and a close study of the corpus of silk artifacts to map the transformations in sartorial practice. By the end of the dynasty, fashion had become a key part of a larger critique of the waning empire's economic landscape, the rise of a new military and professional elite, and the collapse of stable status displays. Involved in a nascent market system, tied to the building of new hierarchies, and implicated in structures of gender and cultural identity, the Tang fashion system was integral to these larger historical processes

Dressing for the Times: Fashion in Tang Dynasty China (618-907)

During the Tang dynasty, an increased capacity for change created a new value system predicated on the accumulation of wealth and the obsolescence of things that is best understood as fashion. Increased wealth among Tang elites was paralleled by a greater investment in clothes, which imbued clothes with new meaning. Intellectuals, who viewed heightened commercial activity and social mobility as symptomatic of an unstable society, found such profound changes in the vestimentary landscape unsettling. For them, a range of troubling developments, including crisis in the central government, deep suspicion of the newly empowered military and professional class, and anxiety about waste and obsolescence were all subsumed under the trope of fashionable dressing. The clamor of these intellectuals about the widespread desire to be "current" reveals the significant space fashion inhabited in the empire - a space that was repeatedly gendered female. This dissertation considers fashion as a system of social practices that is governed by material relations - a system that is also embroiled in the politics of the gendered self and the body. I demonstrate that this notion of fashion is the best way to understand the process through which competition for status and self-identification among elites gradually broke away from the imperial court and its system of official ranks. Out of status instability grew a desire for novelty that transformed the dressed body into an object for status display during the late eighth and ninth centuries. Sartorial savvy became a critical arena for the articulation of wealth and power by the old aristocracy and new military or professional elite alike. A foundational aim of my dissertation is to understand how fashion contributed to a new system for ordering the world in Tang dynasty China. By the ninth century, changes in the Tang economic and political structure enabled the rise of a new fashionable elite whose politics of appearance were driven more by the luxury silk economy than by the old symbolic order. I argue that the emergence of fashion was intimately related to developments in the silk industry, which not only reached record production levels during this period, but also manufactured fabrics that were unprecedented in design and complexity. The rise of private silk workshops in the latter half of the dynasty made silk more available to the new military and professional elites. As consumers of novel silks, these elites propelled the silk industry forward and with it, fashion. The new silk economy was personified in a popular literary trope of the ninth century: the impoverished weaving girl slaving away in the silk workshops as an icon of the damages engendered by the excessive consumption of luxury. With this project, I illustrate how the history of Tang fashion serves as an important prism into the workings of the Tang state, the productive lives of premodern women, and the formation of social and cultural identities during a dynamic period of world history. My approach is interdisciplinary, informed by economic history, art history, literature, and textile technology. To my analysis of Tang poetry, sumptuary laws, and economic treatises, I add careful examination of the visual representations of dress and a close study of the corpus of silk artifacts to map the transformations in sartorial practice. By the end of the dynasty, fashion had become a key part of a larger critique of the waning empire's economic landscape, the rise of a new military and professional elite, and the collapse of stable status displays. Involved in a nascent market system, tied to the building of new hierarchies, and implicated in structures of gender and cultural identity, the Tang fashion system was integral to these larger historical processes

Xinjiang Year Zero

Since 2017, the Chinese authorities have detained hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other Muslim minorities in 'reeducation camps' in China’s northwestern Xinjiang autonomous region. While the official reason for this mass detention was to prevent terrorism, the campaign has since become a wholesale attempt to remould the ways of life of these peoples—an experiment in social engineering aimed at erasing their cultures and traditions in order to transform them into ‘civilised’ citizens as construed by the Chinese state. Through a collection of essays penned by scholars who have conducted extensive research in the region, this volume sets itself three goals: first, to document the reality of the emerging surveillance state and coercive assimilation unfolding in Xinjiang in recent years and continuing today; second, to describe the workings and analyse the causes of these policies, highlighting how these developments insert themselves not only in domestic Chinese trends, but also in broader global dynamics; and, third, to propose action, to heed the progressive Left’s call since Marx to change the world and not just analyse it

Textile Waste & The 3R's: Textile Waste Strategy Recommendations For The City Of Toronto

The outsourcing of manufacturing to low-wage countries in concert with the rise of fast fashion business models has resulted in an abundance of low-cost and low-quality textile products. This has led to increased consumption and shortened product lifecycles, the consequence of which is increased textile waste. This waste stream generates environmental, economic, and social consequences in countries of both production and consumption. As such, it is necessary for municipalities, like the City of Toronto, to adopt a comprehensive textile recycling strategy to divert these materials from landfills. The 3R Waste Hierarchy provides a framework on which to model such a strategy. Strategies based on the 3R components of Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle help to minimize the amount of waste disposed while conserving natural resources and extracting the maximum value out of already produced products. The first component, Reduce, focuses on changing consumption habits to prevent the creation of waste, and in the context of textile waste aim to move consumers away from the purchase of fast fashion products. The fast fashion retail model is premised on introducing new products to stores as quickly as possible. In this model, clothing quickly becomes outdated or falls apart, leading to disposal. The second component, Reuse, focuses on using an item again and prolonging its life. Textiles can be sold or donated to second-hand retailers to be used by a new owner. Thrift stores comprise the largest portion of the second-hand market. They accept donations of used clothing, which are then sold in their retail stores or to for-profit recyclers to generate revenue. Lack of information is a major barrier to the success of reuse strategies. Consumers generally do not understand what can be donated, choosing instead to throw away items they thought donation centres would not accept. The final component, Recycle, involves recovering the valuable raw materials from a product and utilizing these as inputs into a new product. Mechanical and chemical textile recycling processes are used to break down textiles and produce new fibres. Depending on the process, the resulting fibres are either of lower or same quality as the original fibres, and can be utilized for a variety of applications. For each 3R component, strategies to address textile waste are identified and evaluated according to their potential efficiency, effectiveness, and feasibility. Textile handling and collection strategies are also analyzed using the same criteria. Accordingly, to address its textile waste, the City of Toronto is recommended to introduce voluntary reduction strategies, such as textile collection boxes and green procurement, and education campaigns. Over time the City should move towards full compliance using by-laws mandating building diversion levels and landfill bans. By implementing such a strategy, the City of Toronto can address the impact of its textile waste, and serve as a model for other Canadian municipalities looking to do the same

Xinjiang Year Zero

Since 2017, the Chinese authorities have detained hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other Muslim minorities in 'reeducation camps' in China’s northwestern Xinjiang autonomous region. While the official reason for this mass detention was to prevent terrorism, the campaign has since become a wholesale attempt to remould the ways of life of these peoples—an experiment in social engineering aimed at erasing their cultures and traditions in order to transform them into ‘civilised’ citizens as construed by the Chinese state. Through a collection of essays penned by scholars who have conducted extensive research in the region, this volume sets itself three goals: first, to document the reality of the emerging surveillance state and coercive assimilation unfolding in Xinjiang in recent years and continuing today; second, to describe the workings and analyse the causes of these policies, highlighting how these developments insert themselves not only in domestic Chinese trends, but also in broader global dynamics; and, third, to propose action, to heed the progressive Left’s call since Marx to change the world and not just analyse it

Multiethnic Societies of Central Asia and Siberia Represented in Indigenous Oral and Written Literature

Central Asia and Siberia are characterized by multiethnic societies formed by a patchwork of often small ethnic groups. At the same time large parts of them have been dominated by state languages, especially Russian and Chinese. On a local level the languages of the autochthonous people often play a role parallel to the central national language. The contributions of this conference proceeding follow up on topics such as: What was or is collected and how can it be used under changed conditions in the research landscape, how does it help local ethnic communities to understand and preserve their own culture and language? Do the spatially dispersed but often networked collections support research on the ground? What contribution do these collections make to the local languages and cultures against the backdrop of dwindling attention to endangered groups? These and other questions are discussed against the background of the important role libraries and private collections play for multiethnic societies in often remote regions that are difficult to reach

Textile Society of America- Abstracts and Biographies

TSA Abstracts and Biographies, September 2012

Multiethnic Societies of Central Asia and Siberia Represented in Indigenous Oral and Written Literature

Central Asia and Siberia are characterized by multiethnic societies formed by a patchwork of often small ethnic groups. At the same time large parts of them have been dominated by state languages, especially Russian and Chinese. On a local level the languages of the autochthonous people often play a role parallel to the central national language. The contributions of this conference proceeding follow up on topics such as: What was or is collected and how can it be used under changed conditions in the research landscape, how does it help local ethnic communities to understand and preserve their own culture and language? Do the spatially dispersed but often networked collections support research on the ground? What contribution do these collections make to the local languages and cultures against the backdrop of dwindling attention to endangered groups? These and other questions are discussed against the background of the important role libraries and private collections play for multiethnic societies in often remote regions that are difficult to reach

Zunun Kadir's Ambiguity: The dilemma of a Uyghur writer under Chinese rule

This thesis considers the work of the influential Uyghur writer Zunun Kadir (1912-1989), and through it charts some aspects of Uyghur identity and aspiration, while explaining the background of his work in relation to the culture and history of the Uyghur people of East Turkistan (Xinjiang). Growing up in a poor and conservative family under Chinese rule, Zunun developed a commitment to nationalism and socialism in the belief that these would serve as the best basis for the advancement of the Uyghur people. In middle age he witnessed the absorption of the East Turkistan Republic into the People’s Republic of China (PRC) established by the Chinese Communist Party, and he adapted himself to work under that government. This involved accepting a political agenda that called upon him to support a unified greater China to the detriment of Uyghur national interests. This situation presented Zunun Kadir with an enduring dilemma: how to resist the cultural domination of the Han Chinese and maintain the distinct cultural identity of the Uyghur people, while ensuring his freedom to write and publish in an environment controlled by the CCP. In the volatile political environment of the PRC, this balance could not be maintained indefinitely and Zunun was eventually subjected to official criticism and sent to the Tarim desert to undergo labour reform. After 17 years of exile he was rehabilitated in the Deng Xiaoping era, and he returned to Urumqi to resume his career as a Uyghur writer. His later work indicates a degree of disillusionment and caution, but also shows how he reconciled his choices by balancing his idealism with the reality of his environment. The use of ambiguous language and imagery allowed Zunun Kadir to pass the political scrutiny required of a publishing author in the PRC, and at the same time to offer different layers of meaning to his Uyghur-reading audience through cultural and historical references to Uyghur life