ACM Conversations - Mei Mei Rado

Name: ACM Conversations - Mei Mei Rado
Start: 2025-08-14T19:00:00+08:00
Location: 1 Empress Place, Singapore, Singapore 179555

Schedule

Thu, 14 Aug, 2025 at 07:00 pm

UTC+08:00

Location

1 Empress Place, Singapore, Singapore 179555 | Singapore, SG

𝐅𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐔𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐑𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠
𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐒𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐖𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧 𝐅𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐨𝐧
𝐌𝐞𝐢 𝐌𝐞𝐢 𝐑𝐚𝐝𝐨

This talk is free.
Registration (with $10 refundable deposit) required.
Click here to register: https://chineseskirts.peatix.com

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Chinese garments – especially pleated silk skirts worn by Han Chinese women – found new life in Europe and the US. These richly decorated textiles were often taken apart, adapted, and refashioned into Western-style clothing.
This talk traces the trajectories of refashioned Chinese skirts, exploring their history in China, the international trade in second-hand Chinese textiles, the historical practice of reusing and modifying garments in Europe and the US, and chinoiserie in fashion. Rather than looking at these hybrid garments as “inauthentic” or “compromised” objects, Mei Mei Rado invites us to consider how their transformations activated a new fashion cycle in a different cultural context – one that infused new lives and meanings into cast-out items from another culture.

𝐴𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑆𝑝𝑒𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑟
𝐌𝐞𝐢 𝐌𝐞𝐢 𝐑𝐚𝐝𝐨 is Assistant Professor of Textiles, Dress, and Decorative Arts at Bard Graduate Center. Previously she was Associate Curator of Costume and Textiles at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and had held curatorial and research positions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art, and the Palace Museum. Her research focuses on Chinese and French textiles and dress from the eighteen to early twentieth century. She is the author of 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐸𝑚𝑝𝑖𝑟𝑒’𝑠 𝑁𝑒𝑤 𝐶𝑙𝑜𝑡ℎ: 𝐶𝑟𝑜𝑠𝑠-𝐶𝑢𝑙𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑎𝑙 𝑇𝑒𝑥𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑄𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐶𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑡 (2025).

𝐴𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑜𝑟
𝐋𝐨𝐮𝐢𝐬𝐞 𝐋𝐮𝐢 is curator of Chinese art at the Asian Civilisations Museum. Her research interests include East Asian ceramics, textiles, and objects that arise from exchanges between different cultures and mediums. She recently curated 𝐹𝑢𝑘𝑢𝑠𝑎: 𝐽𝑎𝑝𝑎𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑒 𝐺𝑖𝑓𝑡 𝐶𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐶ℎ𝑟𝑖𝑠 𝐻𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝐶𝑜𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑃𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑎𝑘𝑎𝑛 𝑀𝑢𝑠𝑒𝑢𝑚 (2024).