Essay Research - China

Reading an article written in the Telegraph on 11^th July by William Langley, called Haute couture: Making a loss is the height of fashion.

He says of Couture that on the one side are those who say that the business will die if it doesn’t change. On the other hand are those who say it will die if it does not.

If everything around the art of couture changes, including the market itself, then it only makes sense that the art itself will need to adapt, change is survival, it pivots on wealthy people but if the wealthy people change then the product needs to grow into something that keeps its roots and identity but reflects the demographic it caters to.

He writes that even the head of Yves Saint Laurent has been made to understand that ‘You can see it dropping dead all around you, and that nobody buys it anymore. And that it is out of date and out of time. It could be understood that Couture has not relevance in an ever changing world, the young rich want something different, something easy to wear and fun, this maybe because the female role is a completely different role that that of the 1950’, women are not the homemakers like they were in the fifties, they do not just stay home and arrange charity balls and social events, they have key roles within the ‘real world’, they are business women in their own right. Its also interesting to learn that the reason the business isn’t laying dead in a gutter somewhere is that ‘Asia’s new wealth has slowed the decline without arresting it’ this could suggest that the new rich whose societies and cultures have, what we would refer to as a more dated view on the female role, one that is similar to the view we had when the couture business was thriving in Europe.

Author: Barbara Watson Andaya

http://asiasociety.org/countries/traditions/women-southeast-asia?page=0,1

12^th March 2013

It has been documented in China that ‘entrenched attitudes that see women’s primary role as that of wife and mother. Gender stereotypes that favour males over females are often reinforced in school textbooks and are sometimes encouraged by religious teachings.’ Which supports these thoughts, but this view is being challenged with their ever growing economy and political progress

http://www.fairobserver.com/360theme/role-women-chin

The Role of Women in China

10 AUGUST 2012

KIRA O'SULLIVAN

The rapid development of China has shifted the issues faced by women, and many are now beginning to scrutinize their role within society, the economy and politics.

You may have to question just how long will couture’s new audience require such elaborate costume fashion, when will they start desiring easier to wear clothes in the same way the European wealth has evolved.