Dressing for Leadership in China: Wives and Husbands in an Age of Revolutions (1911–1976)

Abstract

The intertwining histories of Chinese dress and politics are registered by the way successive leaders and their spouses chose to present themselves. This essay examines the sartorial practices of three specific marriage partnerships to arrive at a nuanced understanding of the counterbalance of female and male roles played out in the public gaze through the great turns of twentieth-century Chinese history. While the protagonists themselves had little to say publicly about their appearance, there are compelling visual images, as well as telling contemporary comments, which are interrogated for their representation of a revolutionary Chinese modernity.

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