Empire of style: silk and fashion in Tang China

Abstract

Tang dynasty (618-907) China hummed with cosmopolitan trends. Its capital at Chang'an was the most populous city in the world and was connected via the Silk Road with the critical markets and thriving cultures of Central Asia and the Middle East. In Empire of Style, BuYun Chen reveals a vibrant fashion system that emerged through the efforts of Tang artisans, wearers, and critics of clothing. Across the empire, elite men and women subverted regulations on dress to acquire majestic silks and au courant designs, as shifts in economic and social structures gave rise to what we now recognize as precursors of a modern fashion system: a new consciousness of time, a game of imitation and emulation, and a shift in modes of production.

Contents

Traces -- History : cloth and the logics of cosmopolitan empire -- Discourse : fashion and sumptuary regulation -- Surfaces -- Style : fashioning the Tang beauty -- Design : silk and the logics of fashion -- Desire : men of style and the metrics of fashion.