Hanfu Hangout: Traditional Dress By Contemporary Chinese Designers In The Metaverse Event
- Time:
- 13:00 - 13:40
- Date:
- 18 January 2023
- Venue:
- online / Microsoft Teams - email confucius@soton.ac.uk for link
Event details
Lunchtime talk
Presenter
Gemma A. Williams is a globally-focused writer and curator with a specialism in the China market and contemporary Chinese designers. Launched at Shanghai Fashion Week, her 2015 book Fashion China (Thames & Hudson) remains a pioneering text in its field for its work in a western curatorial approach to a new generation of Chinese designers. She completed her MA in Fashion Curation at the London College of Fashion (LCF) and a BA in Communications from Trinity College Dublin. She has worked for the Modemusuem Antwerp (MoMu), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Council, Irish Design 2015 and LCF. She is now the China curator for A Shaded View of Fashion Film Festivals.
As the Editorial Director at the luxury China publication Jing Daily, she launched the metaverse vertical Jing Meta. Currently, she is fashion ambassador for Metaverse Fashion Week. She makes fashion operas with her production company UU Studios and its next opera will debut in the Metaverse with Winter Olympics designer brand Chenpeng.
The talk will also include a presentation from Janice Wu Event Planner at metaverse platform DragonCity which sits on Decentraland.
Abstract
Hanfu culture has recently seen an explosion in popularity. Across gaming, TV drama, and through Hanfu influencers such as bloggers Shinyin and Li Ziqi and fashion brand Chonghui Hantang, there has been a renaissance of interest in traditional Chinese dress. Much of this has been facilitated by digital technology: from social platforms to Web3. Perhaps one of the most exciting – and paradoxical – developments is the merging of ancient costume with the dematerialised world of the metaverse. This project aims to explore the potential of this focal point. In doing so, it curates a dynamic metagallery of works by contemporary Chinese artists on the metaverse platform Dragon City. Offering new ways to engage with and consider Chinese youth and Hanfu culture in the 2020s, it interrogates how emerging local names are finding ways to reinterpret traditional culture in these new technological realities. In doing so, the project will analyse how ancient Hanfu culture is experienced and shaped retroactively by the interventions of Chinese followers from the present day.