How to Make a Mao Suit

By Antonia Finnane

Book Overview

When the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, new clothing protocols for state employees resulted in far-reaching changes in what people wore. In a pioneering history of dress in the Mao years (1949-1976), Antonia Finnane traces the transformation, using industry archives and personal stories to reveal a clothing regime pivoted on the so-called 'Mao suit'. The time of the Mao suit was the time of sewing schools and sewing machines, pattern books and homemade clothes. It was also a time of close economic planning, when rationing meant a limited range of clothes made, usually by women, from limited amounts of cloth. In an area of scholarship dominated by attention to consumption, Finnane presents a revisionist account focused instead on production. How to Make a Mao Suit provides a richly illustrated account of clothing that links the material culture of the Mao years to broader cultural and technological changes of the twentieth century.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1009359991
• ISBN13: 9781009359993
• Release Date: August 2023
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 376 Pages
• Weight: 1.13 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"