The Politics of Dress in Asia and the Americas

This book examines how the politics of dress has been incorporated in constructions of nationhood in both Asia and the Americas, and reveals how politicians and political regimes (including tribal, revolutionary, authoritarian, colonial, and democratic) manipulate sumptuary practices in order to create national identities, to legitimise hierarchies of power or to build personal political identities. In tackling these broad themes over two centuries, the editors and contributors grapple with gender politics; in particular, how men and women's dress reflect their political and economic position in the nation-states.