ACM CONVERSATIONS

Folding, Unfolding, and Refolding: Transformations of Chinese Skirts into Western Fashion

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In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Chinese garments – especially pleated silk skirts worn by Han Chinese women – found new life in Europe and the US. These richly decorated textiles were often taken apart, adapted, and refashioned into Western-style clothing.

This talk traces the trajectories of refashioned Chinese skirts, exploring their history in China, the international trade in second-hand Chinese textiles, the historical practice of reusing and modifying garments in Europe and the US, and chinoiserie in fashion. Rather than looking at these hybrid garments as “inauthentic” or “compromised” objects, Mei Mei Rado invites us to consider how their transformations activated a new fashion cycle in a different cultural context – one that infused new lives and meanings into cast-out items from another culture.

About the speaker


Mei Mei Rado is Assistant Professor of Textiles, Dress, and Decorative Arts at Bard Graduate Center. Previously she was Associate Curator of Costume and Textiles at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and had held curatorial and research positions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art, and the Palace Museum. Her research focuses on Chinese and French textiles and dress from the eighteen to early twentieth century. She is the author of The Empire’s New Cloth: Cross-Cultural Textiles at the Qing Court (2025).

About the moderator


Louise Lui is curator of Chinese art at the Asian Civilisations Museum. Her research interests include East Asian ceramics, textiles, and objects that arise from exchanges between different cultures and mediums. She recently curated Fukusa: Japanese Gift Covers from the Chris Hall Collection at the Peranakan Museum (2024).

^{Image: Chinese reading jacket. Made in France around 1906, original skirt: Chinese, late 19th century. Silk and metal-thread embroidery. Palais Galliera, Musée de la Mode et de la Ville de Paris, 1964.20.119.}