Paper short abstract:

This paper intends to reveal how Taiwanese local female customers use their articulation of their preferences makes their consumption of clothes a dialectic process with the garment industry and so called Western-led ready-to-wear fashion system production. Although many different aesthetics and styles were brought into Taiwan by the so called Western-led ready-to-wear fashion system, paradoxically, a single ideal body figure and shape was emphasized at the same time. Ironically, these varied aesthetics and styles all require an identical ideal body shape - young and beautiful - this will be demonstrated in this paper.

Paper long abstract:

This paper intends to reveal how Taiwanese local female customers use their articulation of their preferences makes their consumption of clothes a dialectic process with the garment industry and so called Western-led ready-to-wear fashion system production. Although many different aesthetics and styles were brought into Taiwan by the so called Western-led ready-to-wear fashion system, paradoxically, a single ideal body figure and shape was emphasized at the same time. Ironically, these varied aesthetics and styles all require an identical ideal body shape - young and beautiful - this will be demonstrated in this paper.

While ready-to-wear fashion has brought democracy to clothing, there is a fundamental contradiction in how it has also created a wholly hegemonic trend where looking slim and young through what one wears has become virtually the golden rule of women's fashion. It seemed at first that the bodies of most Taiwanese women were tied up by this social restriction. However, after interviewing shop owners in Wufenpu and many female consumers, I have realized that neither the wholesalers there nor the female clients are cultural victims enslaved to this ideal. The fieldwork shows, these Taiwanese consumers negotiate with the hegemony of hybrid Western runway fashion by making their move via dress articulate their preferences regarding fashion and the ideal body.