Editing Fashion (section)

=== Alleged Western distinctiveness ===
[[File:Boldini_(Lina_Cavalieri).jpg|thumb|left|[[Lina Cavalieri]] an opera singer and a model, becoming a [[muse]] for several notable artists and photographers.]]

Early Western travellers who visited [[India]], [[Iran|Persia]], [[Turkey]], or [[China]], would frequently remark on the absence of change in fashion in those countries. In 1609, the secretary of the Japanese {{transliteration|ja|[[Tokugawa shogunate|shōgun]]}} bragged inaccurately to a Spanish visitor that [[Japanese clothing]] had not changed in over a thousand years.<ref name=Braudel>Braudel, Fernand [https://books.google.com/books?id=rPgVp3vMOjcC ''Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–18th Centuries, Vol 1: The Structures of Everyday Life''], William Collins & Sons, London 1981 {{ISBN|0-520-08114-5}}</ref>{{Rp|pages=312–313}} However, these conceptions of non-Western clothing undergoing little, if any, evolution are generally held to be untrue; for instance, there is considerable evidence in [[Ming dynasty|Ming China]] of rapidly changing fashions in [[Han Chinese clothing|Chinese clothing]].<ref>[[Timothy Brook (historian)|Timothy Brook]]: "[[The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China]]" (University of California Press 1999); this has a whole section on fashion.</ref> In imperial China, clothing were not only an embodiment of freedom and comfort or used to cover the body or protect against the cold or used for decorative purposes; it was also regulated by strong [[sumptuary law]]s which was based on strict social hierarchy system and the ritual system of the Chinese society.<ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last=Feng |first=Ge |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/935642485 |title=Traditional Chinese rites and rituals |date=2015 |publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing |others=Zhengming Du |isbn=978-1-4438-8783-0 |location=Newcastle upon Tyne |oclc=935642485}}</ref>{{Rp|pages=14–15}} It was expected for people to be dressed accordingly to their gender, social status and occupation; the Chinese clothing system had cleared evolution and varied in appearance in each period of history.<ref name=":3" />{{Rp|pages=14–15}} However, ancient Chinese fashion, like in other cultures, was an indicator of the socioeconomic conditions of its population; for Confucian scholars, however, changing fashion was often associated with [[Civil disorder|social disorder]] which was brought by rapid commercialization.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |title=Modern Chinese literary and cultural studies in the age of theory: reimagining a field |date=2000 |publisher=Duke University Press |first=Rey |last=Chow |isbn=0-8223-8016-1 |location=Durham, NC |oclc=51948712}}</ref>{{Rp|page=204}} Clothing which experienced fast changing fashion in ancient China was recorded in ancient Chinese texts, where it was sometimes referred as {{transliteration|zh|shiyang}}, "contemporary-styles", and was associated with the concept of {{transliteration|zh|[[fuyao (fashion)|fuyao]]}}, "outrageous dress",<ref>{{Cite book |last=Finnane |first=Antonia |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/84903948 |title=Changing clothes in China : fashion, history, nation |date=2008 |publisher=Columbia University Press |isbn=978-0-231-14350-9 |location=New York |oclc=84903948}}</ref>{{Rp|page=44}} which typically holds a negative connotation. Similar changes in clothing can be seen in Japanese clothing between the [[Genroku culture|Genroku period]] and the later centuries of the [[Edo period]] (1603–1867), during which a time clothing trends switched from flashy and expensive displays of wealth to subdued and subverted ones.

[[File:Mizuhara_Kiko_from_"No_Smoking"_at_Opening_Ceremony_of_the_Tokyo_International_Film_Festival_2019_(49013706881).jpg|thumb|[[Kiko Mizuhara]] is a Japanese-American model and designer known for blending traditional Japanese elements with modern fashion, challenging stereotypes of Japanese style as static or outdated.]]

The myth on the lack of fashion in what was considered the Orient was related to [[Imperialism|Western Imperialism]] also often accompanied [[Orientalism]], and European imperialism was especially at its highest in the 19th century.<ref name=":7">{{Cite book |last=Finnane |first=Antonia |title=Changing clothes in China : fashion, history, nation |date=2008 |publisher=Columbia University Press |isbn=978-0-231-14350-9 |location=New York |oclc=84903948}}</ref>{{Rp|page=10}} In the 19th century time, Europeans described China in binary opposition to Europe, describing China as "lacking in fashion" among many other things, while Europeans deliberately placed themselves in a superior position when they would compare themselves to the Chinese<ref name=":7" />{{Rp|page=10}} as well as to other countries in [[Asia]]:<ref name=":7" />{{Rp|page=166}}{{Blockquote|text=Latent orientalism is an unconscious, untouchable certainty about what the Orient is, static and unanimous, separate, eccentric, backward, silently different, sensual, and passive. It has a tendency towards despotism and away from progress. [...] Its progress and value are judged in comparison to the West, so it is the Other. Many rigorous scholars [...] saw the Orient as a locale requiring Western attention, reconstruction, even redemption.|author=Laura Fantone quoted Said (1979) |title=Local Invisibility, Postcolonial Feminisms Asian American Contemporary Artists in California |source=page 166}}Similar ideas were also applied to other countries in the East Asia, in India, and Middle East, where the perceived lack of fashion were associated with offensive remarks on the Asian social and political systems:<ref>{{Cite book |last=Chaudhuri |first=K. N. |title=Asia before Europe : economy and civilisation of the Indian Ocean from the rise of Islam to 1750 |date=1990 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=0-521-30400-8 |location=Cambridge [England] |oclc=20014228}}</ref>{{Rp|page=187}}{{Blockquote |text=I confess that the unchanging fashions of the Turks and other Eastern peoples do not attract me. It seems that their fashions tend to preserve their stupid despotism.|author=[[Jean Baptiste Say]] (1829)}}