Fashion photography's West-centricity ending?
Eastern photography begins with clothing since it affects the subject's image. China's long fashion history follows. Between 1920 and 1940, "modern girls" appeared. Liangyou, a fashion magazine that grew alongside China's modern girl trend, documented women's basic features. In the 1920s and 1930s, US foreign trade popularised modern women. Modern women are stylish. Powdered face, clever bobbed hair, revealing and slim clothes, long and slender physique, and confident smile. The newspaper encourages contemporary women to wear Western clothes to "Modernise" themselves, regardless of size, age, or financial level. The magazine advises women of all ages on fashion and beauty. Antonia Finnane, University of Melbourne history professor, wrote in Changing Chinese clothes: Fashion, History and Nation that women's clothes signified modernity. China's 1930s dress signified modernity. According to Liangyou, Chinese fashionistas mimicked Western dress in the late 1920s. China adopted Western churches and girls' schools after the Opium War. This educated and empowered Chinese women. After the May Fourth Movement, female education symbolised "breaking with the traditional feudalism and pushing towards a brighter future." Modernity became Chinese female students. "Liangyou," which promotes women's self-esteem and academic performance, progressively included their photos.
Liangyou's manga about modern women's lives reflects her powerful self-reflection on this cultural issue. Cartoonists portray modern women as irresponsible, lustful, dangerous, and lascivious shoppers. They represent materialism, modernism, and feminine subjectivity. They're modern. Modern women's sexuality, marriage, commercial culture, and interactions with males dominate Liangyou cartoons. Men voiced reservations about women's independence and modern gender relations. In the 1920s and 1930s, the modern girl inspired Chinese women to seek modern life and relieved public uneasiness about traditional and modern, Eastern and Western ideas.
Chinese design has always featured "implicit beauty," flatness, and spiritual harmony. Three elements form one Chinese character, "HE." Modern Chinese fashion. Harmonious, calm, subtle but evocative, reserved, natural, and pure are examples. "HE" suggests China create a hidden beauty system. (Tsui, 2019) The New China revolution transformed Chinese society, including attire. The cheongsam became bourgeois as women's clothing became more refined. Zhongshan and Lenin suits replaced cheongsams for over twenty years. The 1950s celebrated minimalism and labour. Young women enjoyed men's plaid shirts and work trousers. Youth sought military uniforms during the Cultural Revolution. Teens donned straw green uniforms with military hats and schoolbags. This legendary antique clothing was magnificent. The look was labour and austerity. Some people drenched their new garments to symbolise their hard life, while others patched their intact clothes. Western culture was opposed during this time. These developments combat cultural invasion in China.
Western culture dominates the East. People try hair colour, makeup, and plastic surgery to get Western features like big noses and big eyes. Due of the West's dominance and today's emphasis on appearance. Attractiveness today determines a woman's social status due to society's tougher expectations, especially for women. Attractive ladies have several advantages. In eastern fashion pictures, models pose western-style. The photographer can choose oriental models, yet western stereotypes of oriental faces show western superiority. Celebrities symbolise cultural colonialism. Korean pop is global. Korean celebrities copy Western fashion and performance. Globalisation has made Korean pop culture popular abroad. Despite their hair tints and makeup, the singers have plainly Asian features that reflect traditional Asian values and spirituality, which comforts Asian fans. Even if the performers tried to look western. Asianness became central. Hogarth, 2013. Korean pop broke Western views of Asian culture while following global trends. "East is East and West is West (the two will never meet)," a British saying by Radiad Kipling, contradicts it. Eastern culture is ubiquitous, including photography. The West joins the exploration due to its unique attractiveness. Global attention.
