The Chinese Aesthetic and the New Creative Movement from East to West

Abstract

French historian Fernand Braudel assumes that fashion is “peculiarly a feature of Western history”, while, in the same way, the New York Times in 1913 stated: “The fashions in China? It never occurred to you, perhaps, that there were any!” However, both assumptions are based on a Western perspective and orientation. Both assume that fashion was not present in China simply because they conceived of Chinese sartorial and manufacturing practices in the field as static, without any development for centuries. However, looking through Chinese history, it is possible to identify that the idea of fashion slowly began to materialize as early as the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), which can be aligned to the emergence of Western fashion during the Middle Ages. The Chinese fashion system developed separately from that of the West until recently, so Chinese sartorial changes may not seem as apparent to the Western public.¹