Fashion Communications between Italy and China: Unfolding a Sartorial Relationship

(Hardback)

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In this in-depth study, author Gaoheng Zhang analyses the relationship between the Italian ready-to-wear fashion industry and the Chinese fast fashion industry, focussing on the 2000s and 2010s.

Looking first at the communication of Italian fashion in China before examining the impact of Chinese migrants and Chinese fashion on the Italian fashion industry, the author unpacks perceived tensions between made in China fast fashion and made in Italy ready-to-wear that is viewed as slow fashion. In doing so, Zhang exposes the nuances, controversies and ambivalences of Italy's and China's intertwined fashion systems, revealing not only the competition between these two countries, but also their collaboration.

Applying the lenses of communication, cultural and fashion studies to this analysis, Fashion Communications Between Italy and China reflects on global fashion industries more generally and related topics such as globalized fashion-making, fashion-facilitated transcultural identity construction, and fashion-led negotiation of national economic issues.

Author Bio

Gaoheng Zhang is Associate Professor of Italian Studies at the University of British Columbia, Canada. He is also the author of Migration and the Media: Debating Chinese Migration to Italy, 1992-2012 (2019) and Italian Dumplings and Chinese Pizzas: Transcultural Food Mobilities (2025).