Saturday, July 16, 2016

11:30 – 12:30 pm

Location: University of Alberta Museums Galleries at Enterprise Square – Idea Lounge

Guest Speaker: Prof. Chuan-hui Mau 毛傳慧 (National Tsing-hua University, Taiwan)

Beyond the Imperial Clothing Instructions: Female Dresses in Early Qing China

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Abstract

Immediately after taking over China, Emperor Shunzhi (r. 1643-1661) ordered the Han-Chinese male population to take part in the Manchu hairstyle tradition of shaving part of the head and keeping the remainder in a plait. In order to assure a peaceful reign, however, Han-Chinese women were allowed to keep their own traditional dress and hair styles. At the same time, Manchu women were prohibited from dressing like their Han-Chinese counterparts.

In 1646, the Emperor issued the imperial clothing instructions regulating the forms, colours, materials and decorative patterns according to the social hierarchy, from the emperor, members of the imperial clan, nobles, and mandarins down to commoners. A woman had to follow the rank either of her father or of her husband, and for a widow, that of her son. During the reigns of Kangxi (1662-1722), Yongzheng (1723-1735), and Qianlong (1736-1795), the clothing instructions were modified, but the rules for women, both Manchu and Han-Chinese, were maintained to keep their ethnic customs and identities.

The clothing instructions seem monotonous, but literary descriptions, paintings, particularly textile collections reveal about the rich colours, motifs, materials and forms of women’s “fashions.” How did these women succeed in creating their fashions in spite of imperial rules? What were the circumstances for the evolution of clothing tastes? These are the questions to be discussed in this presentation.

Biography

Chuan-hui Mau is associate professor at the Institute of History, National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan, and an associate member of the laboratory Identités-Cultures-Territoires (ICT, EA 337), and University Paris Diderot – Paris 7. Her academic interest focuses on history of exchanges between China and Europe.