When China Rules the World (22 page)

The body - by which I mean its physical characteristics, especially skin colour, together with style of dress - tells a very different story. The influence of the West in these respects has been profound, especially in North-East Asia, and, to a lesser extent, South-East Asia. In Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, everyday dress as worn by both men and women is highly Westernized - by which I mean the wearing of trousers, shirts, suits, jeans, T-shirts, skirts, blouses and dresses, for example - with traditional clothes, especially in Chinese societies, almost completely confined to relatively ceremonial occasions like weddings. The reason for the virtual disappearance of traditional attire is not obvious; after all, it is not the case in India, where the
sari
and
salwar-kameez
(Punjabi suit) for women and the
kurta-pajama
(loose top and trousers) and
bund-gala
(jacket) for men, for instance, remain ubiquitous, notwithstanding the fact that Western styles of dress are common, especially in the ‘new economy’ urban centres like Bangalore.

In Japan, Western dress began to spread after the Meiji Restoration. Western clothes were worn by government servants and at official ceremonies, but it was not until much later that they became popular amongst ordinary people. During wartime austerity between 1930 and 1945, simplified Japanese clothes replaced the kimono, which was seen as impractical. During the American occupation after the war, a period of large-scale Westernization, many people switched directly from wartime clothing to Western dress. Starting around 1960, Western dress became the preferred choice of the great majority of Japanese, with the kimono largely reserved for special occasions and, in simplified form (especially for men), for relaxing at home. The traditional kimono has far from disappeared, however. On Sundays it remains a common sight in Japanese cities and is worn by women at weddings, rites-of-passage ceremonies and funerals. It has also become a working uniform in restaurants and hotels.
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The Western-style dress now preferred by the Japanese nonetheless retains important elements of national individuality. One example is the ubiquitous soft hat with round brim much favoured as casual wear by Japanese women. The choice of dress and footwear is also influenced by the fact that the Japanese are relatively small. Young Japanese women dress with a marked femininity, reflecting the conservative gender roles that still characterize Japanese society. For men and women alike, in dress as in so much else, there is also a strong group mentality, with less stress on individualism than is the case in the West. Thus, up to a point, there is a distinctive Japanese look, as exemplified by the
kawaii
child-woman cuteness, a girlie look which has also enjoyed some popularity outside Japan in recent years.
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The three most famous Japanese design houses - Comme des Garçons, Yohji Yamamoto and Issey Miyake - all of which arrived on the global fashion scene in the 1970s - lie broadly within the Western tradition. However, they demonstrate a marked distinctiveness in comparison with European and American designers. Although each is very different, they are all distinguished by a strong emphasis on materials, the use of sombre and austere colours, a greater willingness to play with the boundaries, and an extremely rapid cycle of collections. While Western fashion is preoccupied with clothes that reveal and emphasize the female form, for these designers the shape of the body and the display of flesh are of much less concern. Indeed, Comme des Garçons’ Rei Kawakubo avoids representing the body as overtly sexual. Collectively they can be seen as representing a modestly distinctive Japanese sartorial aesthetic within a global fashion world which remains Western-dominated.
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The Chinese story is different from the Japanese but ends up in a rather similar place. For thousands of years, Chinese dress was deeply entwined with social hierarchy, being one of its more important and visible expressions. Only the emperor, for example, was allowed to wear yellow; his sons were required to wear golden yellow, while nobles wore blue-black.
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As Valerie Steel and John S. Major write:

Clothing was considered a matter of great importance in ancient China. It was an instrument of the magical aura of power through which the emperor ruled the world: in addition, it served to distinguish the civilized from the barbarous, the male from the female, the high from the base, the proper from the improper - in short, it was an instrument of order in a society dedicated to hierarchy, harmony and moderation.
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It is not surprising, therefore, that the 1911 Revolution, which overthrew dynastic rule, was also the occasion for a sartorial revolution. The demise of the Qing court led to the dissolution of the old rules. Foot-binding for women, which had persisted for a thousand years, disappeared as did the tradition of male queues (hair worn in a long ponytail), which had been introduced by the Manchus. Chinese dress had been the subject of growing Western influence after the Opium Wars and the establishment of the treaty ports, but the rise of nationalism after 1911 made Western dress more problematic for both sexes.
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The result was a hybrid, the most famous example being the woman’s
qipao
, better known in the West as the cheongsam, which combined Chinese, Manchu and Western elements, and which became indelibly associated with Shanghai in the 1930s. Its heyday was between 1930 and 1950, though it persisted for rather longer amongst the overseas Chinese, especially in Hong Kong.
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The 1949 Revolution ushered in a new sartorial era. The Communist regime regarded the old styles of Chinese dress as a relic of the feudal past. In their place, the regime encouraged an egalitarian mode of dress that was loosely based around the Sun Yat-sen uniform, wrongly described in the West as the Mao suit. The Sun Yat-sen uniform, featuring a high-collared tunic, was, like the
qipao
, a hybrid style, and drew on Japanese, German and Soviet military influences. The ubiquitous Maoist style of dress, in contrast, was partly inspired by the traditional trousers, tunic and black cotton shoes of the Chinese peasant. There were no government edicts concerning dress, but the new Maoist style clearly reflected the egalitarian principles of the regime, as well as the poverty of the country.
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Only after 1978 did this state of affairs slowly begin to change to the point where Chinese cities are now overwhelmingly dominated by Western-style dress.
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The Maoist style of dress has almost entirely disappeared, as has the Sun Yat-sen uniform previously worn by government officials - to be largely replaced by the Western suit. The only element of traditional Chinese dress that persists amongst ordinary people is the Chinese jacket, which still remains popular, especially amongst the old. Trousers are very widely worn by women, more so than in the West, which is in part a continuation of a much older Chinese tradition, trousers never having had the masculine connotation they once did in the West.
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Otherwise there is little evidence of traditional Chinese wear, in either traditional or modernized form, for men or women. The only exception is a recent minor revival of the
quipao
amongst waitresses and hotel staff.

Various designers have sought to reintroduce traditional themes into modern Chinese dress. The best known example is David Tang’s Shanghai Tang label, but it has experienced only limited success, with the clothes in its Hong Kong shops mainly bought by Westerners. Blanc de Chine, another Hong Kong firm, has similar ambitions, as does Shiatzy Chen in Taipei. Designers like Vivienne Tam, Amy Chan and Anna Sui - based mainly in the West - have also explored the use of Chinese elements in their designs. Notwithstanding these efforts, the striking feature of modern Chinese dress - certainly in contrast to India - is how Westernized it is and how little it incorporates traditional Chinese elements.
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Over the last decade, meanwhile, various features, such as the distinctive Chinese-style collar and buttons, have become increasingly conspicuous in Western women’s fashion, reflecting the growing influence of a Chinese aesthetic.
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In addition, the enhanced importance of the East Asian market has also led to a small rise in the use of models from the region in Western fashion.
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Why have the Japanese and Chinese so comprehensively abandoned their sartorial traditions? Clearly the influence of Western modernity - in this case primarily European - has extended to what people choose to wear. If people want to be modern they feel they must dress in a Western way: Western dress is the sartorial badge of modernity. Another frequently offered explanation is practicality: that traditional forms of dress are seen as largely impractical for modern living. But that does not explain why traditional elements have not found expression in a popularized and modernized form: that is what, after all, has happened with the relentlessly innovative tradition of Western dress. Long dresses and petticoats, doublets and breeches, top hats and tails, may all have disappeared, along with much else, but the Western tradition of dress thrives and prospers. In the Japanese case, traditional (and simplified) forms of dress never came to be regarded as fundamental to the Japanese way of life, or Japanese ‘realm’,
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as Kosaku Yoshino puts it, unlike language, food, sake (rice wine) and tatami mats, for example. As a consequence, dress was one of the elements that the Japanese were prepared to forsake and see Westernized as part of the process of post-Meiji modernization. In China, in contrast, traditional forms of dress were condemned to virtual extinction by their association with the old dynastic order. After 1978, it was a relatively short sartorial journey from the ubiquitous style of dress of the Maoist era to the Western styles of today.

A similar picture of Western influence holds throughout North-East Asia, including South Korea and Taiwan. Much the same is true of most of South-East Asia as well. The main exception is Malaysia (and to a lesser extent Indonesia), where a majority of Malay women now cover their head with the
tudung
(headscarf) and wear the
baju kurung
(a Malay style of dress consisting of sarong and upper tunic). With rapid urbanization and in a highly multiracial environment, this represents a strong statement of cultural identity. In part the style represents a return to Malay tradition, but it is also an appropriation of various Islamic traditions, which have been given a distinctively Malay flavour by the use of strikingly bold colours:
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Malays have a highly developed sense of fashion, certainly when compared with Indian and especially Chinese Malaysians, with their somewhat drab mimicry of Western dress codes.

If Western dress has been widely adopted in China, Japan and elsewhere for the reasons outlined, why has this not been the case in India, or amongst Malay women, for example? It would seem that in both instances religion has played a crucial role in sustaining traditional forms of dress. A distinctive feature of both China and Japan - and North-East Asia generally - is the lack of any strong tradition of organized religion. This contrasts markedly with India, where Hinduism and to a lesser extent Islam, for example, exercise an extremely important cultural influence. In both, dress plays at least two roles: first, it is a reflection of religious teaching, not least in the rules governing gender dressing, and second, it may act as a means of distinguishing followers of a religion from others. Both these considerations, for example, apply to Malay women and also to Punjabi men, with their uncut hair and turban. Religion has proved a formidable obstacle to Western-style dress in South Asia, whereas in China and Japan it barely constitutes a factor in dress codes.

Tokyo fashion shows use many white models, as well as Japanese, but rarely anyone of darker skin. Comme des Garçons only ever uses white models at its shows.
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White models are common at Hong Kong fashion week, along with Chinese, but there are rarely, if ever, black or brown models. The local fashion magazines - which are often versions of Western magazines like
Vogue
or
Elle
- carry text in the vernacular but the models are overwhelmingly white.
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A majority of fashion advertising in Hong Kong - though no longer in Japan - uses white (rather than Chinese) models, as does Giordano, the local equivalent of Gap; black or brown models are never to be seen. A walk around the underground shopping mall beneath People’s Square in central Shanghai paints a not dissimilar picture: the advertising mainly features Chinese models but there are plenty of Caucasians and never anyone of darker skin. In India, on the other hand, the models on the catwalks and in the fashion magazines are overwhelmingly Indian, usually of fair complexion.
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In an interview with Yang Qingqing, a beauty expert and cult figure amongst Shanghai women, I sought to understand the profusion of white models and the total absence of models with darker skin.

Chinese culture is very open. We can accept things from outside. When we look at a foreigner we will be more tolerant of their beauty. But if they are Chinese we will be more critical. Maybe distance generates an appreciation of beauty, that’s why we like Western features.
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Despite my best efforts, she refused to be drawn on why this apparent openness did not include women of darker skin. Mei Ling, a Taiwanese beauty expert who advises Max Factor and acts as a consultant to Chinese pop singers and film stars, was altogether more forthcoming:

In Hong Kong, Taiwan and the mainland, Chinese girls like white skin products. They think white is beautiful. People have a dream and it is about the West. We are yellow, but we don’t want to be. For Max Factor, Lancôme and the rest, every season it is the same colour - white. It is very boring. We try and sell them a new colour each season, but they just want white. Asians like white skin. For seventy years - the period of make-up - the choice has always been the same - white. Because of the shape of the Chinese face - a small nose, high cheek bones, narrow eyes and absence of facial hair - skin is more important to the Chinese than to Westerners.
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