How to Make a Mao Suit

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.