In traditional Western culture, women’s fashions change with the seasons, as fast as designers can produce something women will buy and wear. Men’s fashions, on the other hand, change glacially. The basic suit and tie have been the business uniform for a couple of centuries now. Worldwide, the figures who change that trend tend to be political leaders, some who changed what men wore in direct defiance of colonialism.
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After years of Western domination, swaths of the developing world that had long been forced to follow the norms set by European and American powers wanted their own alternative to the Western suit and tie. So they came up with their own formalwear. China had the Mao suit, India the Nehru jacket, the Jamaicans wore the Kariba suit and the Congolese donned the abacost.
All of those are either untucked shirts or button-up coats, which would easily fit in the wardrobe of any present-day 20-something fashionista. Similar ensembles were featured in Phoebe English’s show at London Fashion Week in 2018, while Chinese brand Pronounce brought pink Mao jackets to the runways that same year. But right after World War II, these garments had a more radical message: They showed how recently decolonized countries were trying to go their own way. “Politics and fashion are very much related,” says Sean Metzger, an associate professor at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television who has written about the Mao suit. “It’s a way to show conformity, but also resistance, to certain political regimes.”
It might surprise you to know that Mao Zedong was not the first to popularize the Mao suit. Read the history of some of these anti-colonial fashions at Ozy.
Source: neatorama