The Weft of Shanghai Fashion: Economic Networks in Shanghai’s Modern Fashion Industry

ABSTRACT: Shanghai’s modern fashion industry developed between the last decades of the nineteenth century and the 1930s and was an important step in China’s industrialisation. The present article aims to define the relationship between production and consumption in Shanghai’s modern fashion industry. One of the main characteristics of modern fashion is its ability to innovate by creating new and distinct trends while absorbing different influences. Shanghai modern fashion was an original mix of Chinese and foreign styles. The second determinant of this phenomenon is its capacity to be distinctive and reproducible at the same time. Shanghai’s modern fashion therefore only emerged when the city was able to innovate and produce goods on a massive scale that were adapted to consumer tastes. To prove this relationship, the present article establishes concrete links between traders, industrialists, and retailers. The textile industry benefited from the outcome of a complex network that linked foreign trade, cotton mills, retail shops, and mass publicity. This paper analyses how this economic network was developed. KEYWORDS: Shanghai modern fashion, textile industry, Chinese networks, garment industry, industrialisation of China.