Rachel Silberstein - A Fashionable Century: Textile Artistry and Commerce in the Late Qing

A FASHIONABLE CENTURY

A
FASHIONABLE
CENTURY

TEXTILE ARTISTRY AND COMMERCE
IN THE LATE QING

RACHEL SILBERSTEIN

A WILLIAM SANGKI AND NANHEE MIN HAHN BOOK

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON PRESS

SEATTLE

A Fashionable Centurywas also supported by a generous grant from the William Sangki and Nanhee Min Hahn Fund for Books on East Asia.

Additional support was provided by the Association for Asian Studies First Book Subvention
Program, the Pasold Research Fund, and the Scouloudi Foundation in association with the
Institute of Historical Research.

Copyright 2020 by the University of Washington Press

Design by Laura Shaw Design

Composed in Warnock Pro, typeface designed by Robert Slimbach, and

Ideal Sans, typeface designed by Hoefler & Co.

Maps by Bill Nelson

24 23 22 21 20 5 4 3 2 1

Printed and bound in Korea

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form

or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information

storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON PRESS

uwapress.uw.edu

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Silberstein, Rachel, 1977 author.

Title: A fashionable century : textile artistry and commerce in the late Qing / Rachel Silberstein.

Description: Seattle : University of Washington Press, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019041152 (print) | LCCN 2019041153 (ebook) | ISBN 9780295747187 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780295747194 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH : Textile designChinaHistory19th century. | Textile industryChina History19th century. | FashionSocial aspectsChinaHistory19th century. | Women textile workersChinaHistory19th century. | Women artisansChinaHistory19th century.

Classification: LCC NK8883.A1 S55 2020 (print) | LCC NK8883.A1 (ebook) | DDC 746.0951dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019041152

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019041153

The paper used in this publication is acid free and meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z 39.481984.

For my husband Lev and our sonsJascha, Emil, and Natan

If all the clothing handed down for generations had never been sold to dealers in secondhand goods, their annual sunning in June would have been a brilliant and lively affair. You would move down the path between bamboo poles, flanked by walls of silk and satinan excavated corridor within an ancient underground palace buried deep under the ground.