Shanghai Fashion Week: A Socially Engaging Mass Entertainment with a Professional Infrastructure
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2611-0563/10572Keywords:
Fashion Culture, Fashion Week, Social Fashion, Socialist Ideology, Global Fashion EcosystemAbstract
This paper uses a cultural event in the global fashion ecosystem that has been largely ignored, the fashion week, as an entry point to elaborate on the explicit cultural characteristics of Shanghai Fashion Week (SHFW) alongside the significant rise and construction of the Chinese design and fashion cultural system in the past five years. Under the structural interconnectedness between art and capitalism in the global fashion industry, together with the drive of the socialist ideology of the public ownership of the means of production in China, SHFW is now showing discrete cultural characteristics, absorbing as much knowledge as it can from the legitimate fashion week system and incorporating this in the domestic industry context. This paper also argues that SHFW has built up an interactive and dynamic infrastructure or ecosystem within the domestic fashion culture, enhancing its socialist characteristics with the intertwining of a core professional fashion week and a mass carnival event. Its deep engagement with both the general public and professional insiders is a unique cultural characteristic that distinguishes it from Paris Fashion Week and London Fashion Week.References
Atkinson, Paul and Martyn Hammersley. “Ethnography and participant observation.” Strategies of Qualitative Inquiry, n. 11 (1998): 248–61.
Barthes, Roland. The fashion system. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.
Barnett, A. Doak. Cadres bureaucracy and political power in Communist China. New York: New York Columbia University Press, 1967.
Bian Xiangyang. “Fashion culture, system in China, and history of SHFW.” Interview by Zhe Wang (April 18, 2017).
Bourdieu, Pierre and Randal Johnson. The field of cultural production: Essays on art and literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.
Breward, Christopher and David Gilbert (eds.). Fashion’s world cities. London: Berg, 2006.
Breward, Christopher. “Cultures, identities, histories: Fashioning a cultural approach to dress.” Fashion Theory, vol. 2, n. 4 (1998): 301–13.
Breward, Christopher. Fashioning London: Clothing and the modern metropolis. London: Berg, 2004.
Brinkmann, Svend and Steinar Kvale. InterViews: Learning the craft of qualitative research interviewing. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2014.
Bruzzi, Stella and Pamela Church Gibson. Fashion Cultures Revisited: Theories, Explorations and Analysis. London: Routledge. 2013
Burnard, Philip. “A method of analysing interview transcripts in qualitative research.” Nurse Education Today, vol. 11, n. 6 (1991): 461–66.
Cawthorne, Nigel et al. Key moments in fashion: The evolution of style: From haute couture to streetwear; key collections, major figures and crucial moments that changed the course of fashion history from 1890 to the 1990s. London: Hamlyn, 1998.
Coleman, Simon and Bob Simpson. Discovering anthropology: A resource guide for teachers and students. Royal Anthropological Institute: National Network for teaching and learning anthropology: University of Durham, 1998.
Craik, Jennifer. The face of fashion: Cultural studies in fashion. London: Routledge, 2003.
Crane, Diane. “Globalization, organizational size, and innovation in the French luxury fashion industry: Production of culture theory revisited.” Poetics, vol. 24, n. 6 (1997): 393–414.
Crane, Diane. Fashion and its social agendas: Class, gender, and identity in clothing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012.
Cui, Geng and Qiming Liu. “Regional market segments of China: Opportunities and barriers in a big emerging market.” Journal of Consumer Marketing, vol. 17, n. 1 (2000): 55–72.
d’Ovidio, Marianna and Serena Vicari Haddock. “Fashion and the City: Social Interaction and Creativity in London and Milan.” In Brand-building: The creative city. A critical look at current concepts and practices, edited by Marianna d’Ovidio and Serena Vicari, 113–136. Firenze: Firenze University Press, 2010
Davis, Jessica. “Members of the public will be able to attend London Fashion Week shows this September” (August 15, 2019), https://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/fashion/fashion-news/a28707668/london-fashion-week-public-shows/ (accessed: October 2, 2019).
Ember Carol R., Melvin Ember and Nigel Peregrine. “Cross-cultural research.” In Handbook of methods in cultural anthropology, 647–687. Lanham: AltaMira Press, 1998.
English, Bonnie. A cultural history of fashion in the 20th and 21st centuries: From catwalk to sidewalk. London: A&C Black, 2013.
Entwistle, Joanne and Agnès Rocamora. “The field of fashion materialized: A study of London Fashion Week.” Sociology, vol. 40, n. 4 (2006): 735–51.
Entwistle, Joanne and Agnès Rocamora. “Between art and commerce: London Fashion Week as trade fair and fashion spectacle.” In Negotiating Values in the Creative Industries: Fairs, Festivals and Competitive Events, 249–69. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011
Fogg, Marnie. Fashion: The Whole Story. London: Thames & Hudson Limited, 2013.
Friedman, Jonathan. Cultural identity and global process. London: Sage, 1994.
Friedmann, Jonathan. “The world city hypothesis.” Development and change, vol. 17, n. 1 (1986): 69–83.
Fury, Alexander. Catwalking photographs by Chris Moore. London: Laurence King Publishing, 2017.
Gartman, David. “Culture as class symbolization or mass reification? A critique of Bourdieu’s distinction.” American Journal of Sociology, vol. 97, n. 2 (1991): 421–47.
Gu, Xin. “‘Creative Economy’ in China, a case study in Shanghai’s fashion industries.” In Fashion in multiple chinas: Chinese styles in the transglobal landscape, edited by Wessie Ling and Simona Segre Reinach, 94–119. London: I.B. TAURIS, 2018.
Hammersley, Martin and Paul Atkinson. Ethnography: Principles in practice. London: Routledge, 2007.
Hollway, Wendy and Tony Jefferson. Doing qualitative research differently: Free association, narrative and the interview method. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2000.
Kaiser, Susan B. Fashion and cultural studies. London: A&C Black, 2012.
Kawamura, Yuniya. The Legitimation of Fashion. New York: Columbia University, 2001.
Li, Jun. “Ethical challenges in participant observation: A reflection on ethnographic fieldwork.” The Qualitative Report, vol. 13, n. 1 (2008): 100–15.
Lindgren, Tim. Fashion in Shanghai: The Designers of New Economy of Style, PhD thesis in International Business, A.R.C Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation Queensland University of Technology, 2013.
Ling, Ziyan. “上海时装周：与产业同行, 让发展永驻 [Shanghai fashion week: keep pace with industry and make development permanent],” 2/2 (2012): 4–8.
Liu, Jun.《华丽志》发布首份“中国独立设计师品牌生态报告” [Huali chi published the first “Report of Chinese independent designer brands’ecosystem”] (2017), http://luxe.co/post/57927 (Accessed: February 2, 2018).
Mack, Natasha et al. Qualitative research methods: A data collector’s field guide. North Carolina: Family Health International, 2005.
Miller, Enrica. “The Chinese New Wave changing the perception of Made in China” (2018), https://www.collater.al/en/chinese-new-wave-made-in-china/.
Patrick, A.H. (2013) Methodology: Observation. (2013), http://www.public.asu.edu/~kroel/www500/Observation.pdf (accessed: August 15, 2016).
Paulicelli, Eugenia and Hazel Clark. The fabric of cultures: Fashion, identity, and globalization. London: Routledge, 2009.
Potvin, John. The places and spaces of fashion, 1800-2007. London: Routledge, 2009.
Reeves, Scott et al. “Qualitative research methodologies: ethnography.” BMJ, n. 337 (2008): a1020–a1020.
Roberts, Martyn. “Organisational ideologies on show productions at LFW.” Interview by Zhe Wang (May 15, 2017).
Scott, Allen J. “Cultural economy and the creative field of the city.” Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography, vol. 92, n. 2 (2010): 115–30.
Shao, Longtu, Yufan Zhang. “上海时装周，究竟缺了什么？ [Is there anything lacking in the Shanghai Fashion Week?]” 国际商业技术 International Business and Technology, n. 1 (2009): 40.
Sheroz, Muhammed. Observation in qualitative research, (2013), https://www.slideshare.net/sheroz_ramzan/observation-in-qualitative-research (accessed: July 8, 2016).
Smith, Tamsin. Exclusive interview: Caroline Rush on China and the future of fashion week. https://jingdaily.com/caroline-rush/ (2018) (accessed: February 2, 2018).
Stark, Gill. The fashion show: History, theory and practice. London: Bloomsbury, 2018.
Triandis, Henry C. “The self and social behavior in differing cultural contexts.” Psychological Review, vol. 96, n. 3 (1989): 506–20.
Troy, Nancy J. Couture culture: A study in modern art and fashion. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.
Tsui, Christine. China fashion: Conversations with designers. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2009.
Wang, Jieqiong et al. “Preservation and Regeneration via Hai Pai Culture Renaissance-A Case Study of TianZiFang Creative Quarter in Shanghai.” In Procedings of the 4th international conference of the international forum on urbanism, 289-300. Amsterdam: Delft, 2009.
Wang, Zhe. “An anti-elitism ideology in the new generation of Chinese independent designers: The multi-dimensional design identities and their survival in today’s heteronomous fashion industry,” In The 4th International Congress on Visual Culture. Rome, May 28, 2018.
Wen, Xinyu. “谁在替上海张罗那个时装周？ [Who is preparing and organising Shanghai Fashion Week for the Shanghai City?]” (2017), http://www.qdaily.com/articles/39954.html (accessed: September 15, 2018).
Wu, Juanjuan. Chinese fashion from Mao to Now. Thousand Oaks: Berg Publishers, 2009.
Wu, Weiping. “Cultural strategies in Shanghai: regenerating cosmopolitanism in an era of globalization.” Progress in Planning, vol. 61, n. 3 (2004): 159–80.
Yang, Du. “上海时装周往何处去 [What’s the future of Shanghai Fashion Week?]” China Academic Journal Electronic Publishing House, n. 4 (2009): 10–3.
Zhao, Jianhua. The Chinese fashion industry: An ethnographic approach. London: A&C Black, 2013.
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2020 Zhe Wang
The copyrights of all the texts on this journal belong to the respective authors without restrictions.
This journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (full legal code).
See also our Open Access Policy.
