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When the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, new clothing protocols for state employees resulted in far-reaching changes in what people wore. In a pioneering history of dress in the Mao years (1949–1976), Antonia Finnane traces the transformation, using industry archives and personal stories to reveal a clothing regime pivoted on the so-called 'Mao suit'. The time of the Mao suit was the time of sewing schools and sewing machines, pattern books and homemade clothes. It was also a time of close economic planning, when rationing meant a limited range of clothes made, usually by women, from limited amounts of cloth. In an area of scholarship dominated by attention to consumption, Finnane presents a revisionist account focused instead on production. How to Make a Mao Suit provides a richly illustrated account of clothing that links the material culture of the Mao years to broader cultural and technological changes of the twentieth century.
‘Garments made and worn mirror wider societal priorities, possibilities, and constraints. Antonia Finnane brilliantly illuminates the complexity of the Maoist era, a time of seemingly simple and strict sartorial aims, revealed as much more. Finnane recasts our understanding with ground-breaking gender-rich scholarship, revealing the options and boundaries shaping twentieth-century Chinese life.’
Beverley Lemire - University of Alberta
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