現代性的曲線

The Curve of Modernity

本論文企圖探討中國時尚「線」代性的歷史變遷與身體意識，以十九世紀末到二十世紀前半葉的中國現代女裝造型變化為主要的分析對象，希冀透過服裝史料與時尚理論的建構與比較，勾勒出中國現代性展現在女子服裝上的「流線摩登」。在當前的中西服飾比較研究中，慣於將西方近代「立體曲線剪裁的窄衣文化」與中國近代「平面直線剪裁的寬衣文化」當成論述的基本架構，而忽略了其中建立於「殖民現代性」的二元對立系統（中／西、直線／曲線、寬衣／窄衣、平面／立體），以及此系統所預設的「進化論」（中國女裝由傳統的直線進化到西方的曲線，由古代的寬衣進化到近現代的窄衣，由平面裝飾進化到立體造型）。本論文希望透過「文明新裝」、「旗袍」等具體的服飾形制演變分析，挑戰此二元對立的預設，而由此開展出「時尚」作為「現代性」方法論的積極思考，以及「文化易界──譯介──易介」時尚理論的建構可能。

This paper undertakes to explore the historical change of body consciousness in studies of Chinese modernity by analyzing the altering shapes of Chinese women's modern dress from late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century as visual text. Through a cross-cultural interweaving of fashion history and postcolonial theory, it attempts to map out the way in which Chinese modernity is controversially embodied in the ＂streamlined modern＂ fashion of women's dress. In most contemporary studies of Western and Chinese clothing systems, the basic comparative structure involves contrasting ＂the fit-clothing culture of three-dimensional cutting＂ of the West with ＂the loose-clothing culture of two-dimensional cutting＂ of the East. This discursive structure tends to perpetuate not only the binary system of East/West, straight/curved, loose/fit, two-dimensional/ three-dimensional, which originated from the ideology of ＂colonial modernity,＂ but also the implied teleological and evolutionary progress from the traditional straight line to the modern streamline, from the old loose clothing to the new fit clothing, and from surface decoration to form and structure. This paper will challenge exactly this binary pattern of thinking by tracing the historical contingency of ＂New Dress of Civilization＂ and the ＂Qi Pao＂ to theorize the shaping and shaped curve of Chinese women's modern dress as a dynamic process of cultural transnation-translation-transition and to explore the possibility of taking fashion not merely as one of the subject matters but as the very methodology of modernity.