Textbooks and Textiles: Fashion in East Asia, 1920-1945

From the 1920s to 1945, East Asia experienced radical social change with the introduction of new fashion styles, and new ways of thinking, from the West. The emergence of a new generation of "new women" educated in modern schools was part of this phenomenon, and functioned as a trend-setting influence in East Asian society. In schools, education in dressmaking, sewing, and home economics were important parts of female education. Adopting a new fashion style is, by necessity, accompanied by the new technology of dressmaking. Given that ready-made clothing was not generally available, dressmaking education also served to introduce a new material culture. In Korea and Taiwan under Japanese colonization, the greater part of school curricula and textbooks mirrored those in Japan, which enabled these countries to develop and adopt transnational styles as well as local styles. This research explores the transition of women's fashion in East Asia in modern and colonial conditions from the 1920s to the 1940s by analysing curricula and textbooks on dressmaking in comparison with the prevailing styles in each region. This is expected to suggest the impact of modernity in East Asia and the transnational styles of fashion in colonial Korea and Taiwan, as well as Japan, developed within the local culture. Colonial conditions are also discussed in terms of their impact and limitations in the transition of styles.