East meets West: Textiles exhibit explores cultural exchange in fashion

KINGSTON, R.I. – Nov. 14, 2024 – As you enter the University of Rhode Island’s Textiles Gallery in Quinn Hall, the first thing to catch your eye—though they are small—are the lotus shoes.

The shoes—red, green and black, and beautifully embroidered with flowers—were worn by women whose feet were tightly bound as young girls to make them an ideal 3 to 5 inches.

“Very small feet were much admired in Chinese culture,” said Linda Welters, professor of Textiles, Fashion Merchandising, and Design. “Even though it distorted the feet and made the girls unable to walk freely without support, they were considered beautiful.”

Juxtaposed with a late 19^th century corset from the Royal Worcester Corset Company in Massachusetts, it seems a powerful statement about the lengths women go—willingly or otherwise—to conform to culture’s expectations. But that is not totally the story here, just a provocative way to pull you in. 

The story being told by “Fashioning East and West: The Cross-Culture of Materials, Methods, and Meanings,” has a broader message – exploring a wider understanding of the cultural exchange of fashion between East and West.

“One thing we like to do is to put some ‘wow object’ first to bring people in and I do think the lotus shoes do that,” said Susan Jerome, who manages URI’s Historic Textile & Costume Collection. “It immediately makes the visitor think, ‘OK, there’s something different going on here. I need to think about culture and other cultures and how they interact.”

The exhibit’s story is told well. It goes beneath the surface, discussing social, political, and economic influences while weaving in facts about materials, construction, and cultural importance. Interspersed with about 20 well-chosen garments and accessories from China, Japan and Korea – all taken from URI’s historic collection of 25,000 items – are plenty of wall posters and exhibit labels to educate the visitor. The exhibit is the work of about 10 students in two Textiles, Fashion Merchandising, and Design (TMD) master’s classes who researched, curated and installed the exhibit–working with Welters and adjunct professor Rebecca Kelly.

“We wanted to emphasize to visitors the cross-cultural exchange and that it’s not just the West taking elements from Eastern fashion,” said Aileen Valerio, of Robbinsville, New Jersey, a master’s student in historic textiles and conservation, who was in both classes that put together the exhibit. “But we also wanted to communicate the importance of teaching collections and make the exhibit approachable for all TMD students.”

Welters came up with the idea for the exhibition as a way to expose students in her graduate class TMD 570 Topics: Fashion East and West to a wider view of fashion – not just in the West.

Eastern fashion, she said, has been historically overlooked. “Fashion as a term has been associated with the West forever until quite recently. Historians haven’t recognized [Eastern fashion], but it definitely is there. So we wanted to place Eastern and Western fashion systems on an equal footing.”

Rae Koch of Providence, a graduate student in historic textiles and conservation, noted examples in the exhibit in which the cultural exchange benefited both East and West.

For example, a woman’s yukata that is part of the exhibit was made in Japan and shipped to the West. Unlike traditional yukatas sold in Japan, the informal garment – worn at summer festivals and around the house – was made with a large pleat in the back allowing it to be worn over a bustle style skirt, fashionable in the West in the mid-1800s. Later, that adaptation was also sold in Japan, where Western dress had become more prevalent, said Koch, who was part of Kelly’s class, TMD 548: Exhibition and Storage of Historic Textiles class, which installed the exhibit.

“Those details were adapted in both directions and it’s really fun that we have them in our collection at all,” he added. “It’s really cool to be able to highlight some unique aspects of these garments.”

A Japanese silk pajama set, decorated with tiger lilies, provides an example of globalization, Rae said. As early as the 1870s, artists painted Western women in kimonos. By the 1920s, American women were wearing Japanese kimonos around the house. The rise of informal wear brought in pajamas with pants, starting in the English culture and spreading to the U.S. Eventually, Japan capitalized on the trend.

“The style of clothing was important to women, who were starting to wear pants instead of dresses all the time. The casual clothing allowed them to break out of a lot of formality in what people were wearing,” Koch said.

The exhibit also highlights the use of Eastern fashion elements in contemporary fashion, which raises questions of whether the design exchanges are a form of appreciation or appropriation, Valerio said.

The mamianqun skirt, a style that dates to the Song Dynasty (960-1279), was popular in China over several dynasties. The colorful skirt was worn by brides. More recently, aspects of the skirt have been appropriated into global fashion, many times without honoring Eastern clothing traditions.

“There’s a Dior skirt designed in the same silhouette and it was called the hallmark Dior look, which upset people,” Valerio said. “And then Princess Diana wore the same type of skirt for her engagement to Prince Charles, and it wasn’t exactly traditionally worn. 

“We wanted to present this information … and let the viewer interpret things on their own.”

Another example, she said, is a young boy’s vest – part of a Korean Hanbok ensemble that includes an equally small jacket. The vest was made with a small pocket, a feature influenced by Western culture. The ensemble originally had a satchel to carry belongings. “They didn’t really need the pocket,” she said. “But when the influence came in, they called it a ‘barbarian’ pocket.”

The exhibit was also an opportunity for students to research and work with items in the URI collection – some more than 150 years old – that don’t normally get explored by students. 

“The students showed a lot of care in handling items and in the thought they put into the exhibit,” said Kelly. “One of the things the students really get out of the second half of the class is that experience of working to a museum professional standard. We really try to get these two classes to mimic the real museum work environment.”

Along with researching the items and writing up exhibit labels, students installed the garments, including carefully stitching garments where needed and building the forms to the exact measurements of the garments. Koch said the students wanted to make the exhibit visually appealing while also exhibiting pieces as they would have traditionally been used.

“I had done some installation work in exhibitions before, but this was the first time really digging into creating the story, writing the labels, and curating where objects go in relation to each other,” said Koch.

“This was the first opportunity that I really had to work on the whole curatorial process. That was really valuable for me,” Valerio said. “I’ve learned that the research and the story that the object tells is so paramount to the curatorial process and designing an exhibition. And that’s what helped us develop the themes that united our exhibition.”

“Fashioning East and West” will be on display into March in the first-floor gallery in Quinn Hall, 55 Lower College Road, Kingston. The gallery is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. To read the students’ research for the exhibition, go to the exhibition page.