Asian Fashion

Is there such a thing as Asian fashion? Asia is the largest continent by land mass, with 49 countries and a multiplicity of cultures, ethnicities, languages, religions, and other identities. Can the dress traditions or local designers of the many different countries and regions within Asia be collectively termed “Asian fashion”?

The word “fashion” is frequently used to refer to the haute couture that originated in the West during the mid-1800s and today’s descendent brands often based in Paris, Milan, London, or New York. Breaking out of this Western-centric definition, we can instead think of “fashion” as political, cultural, or personal expression, as ways for people to say something about themselves through what they wear on their persons. In this anthropological sense, “Asian fashion” would refer to the many diverse and beautiful ways people in Asia or of Asian descent express themselves through dress.

Expanding an understanding of fashion from being a largely Western concept also involves debunking certain narratives relating to non-Western clothing traditions. In terms of Asian dress, it’s often the association of Asia with exoticism, mystery, and primitivity. In 2015, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York held its annual Costume Institute gala organized around the theme of China: Through the Looking Glass. The accompanying exhibit, while extremely well-attended, became controversial for reducing China to fantasy, stereotypes, and aesthetic inspiration. I’d argue instead for an anthropological, real world-based approach to fashion in or from any part of the world, including Asia.

Sources & Further Reading

• Website for the Fashion and Race Database: https://fashionandrace.org. The Fashion and Race Database challenges traditional fashion narratives rooted in the Euro-American paradigm and seeks to expand the definitions of what is and isn’t fashion. 

• Website for Asian Fashion Archive: https://www.asianfashionarchive.com. Curated by fashion historian Faith Cooper, the Asian Fashion Archive lists different documentaries, podcasts, books, articles, exhibitions, as well as Asian owned businesses and designers, related to Asian fashion. The site is also regionally sorted by Asian American, East Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.

• “Asian Fashion Archive: An Interview with Faith Cooper” podcast episode (June 30, 2022) of Dressed: The History of Fashion. https://omny.fm/shows/dressed-the-history-of-fashion/asian-fashion-archive-an-interview-with-faith-coop

• For more about the China: Through the Looking Glass exhibit, see: https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2015/china-through-the-looking-glass and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/China:_Through_the_Looking_Glass.

• My September 2024 post similarly discussed a movement within Indigenous fashion to expand the term “fashion” to encompass, rather than exclude, the dress practices of non-white, non-Euro-American cultures.