As a Chinese by myself, once the tutor drop us this topic, I had a question pop up in my head immediately. Did lace adopted to China as well? And that's the reason I am doing this piece of research.
In China, we didn't have lace until 19th century. However, we had a very similar skill which is called silk weaving. The fabric is light, breathable and half see through. There is a silk weaving coat unearth relics and experts said it has more than 2000 years history. And it's only 49g. People nowadays still can't copy it. (https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%A5%BF%E6%B1%89%E7%9B%B4%E8%A3%BE%E7%B4%A0%E7%BA%B1%E8%A5%8C%E8%A1%A3/4269619)
By the time, Capitalist countries invaded and expanded in the 19th century. Many western people came to Chinese, and their most popular fabric is lace, so they took lace into China. Lace been brought to rich people and the Chinese queen CiXi as well. As I said before, we already have the similar techniques thousand years ago, so the silk weaving workers somehow find a way to mix the skill of silk weaving and lace making together to create our own lace.
The struggle revolution accompanying the overthrow of the old Chinese feudal system, people's minds became to more open, and ladies didn't want their old dress code anymore, then a popular dress been born, called chi- pao. It had modern shape and better highlight women's body curves. So we added fashion elements to our chi-pao, which is lace. It had Chinese traditional pattern design. It's kind of a mix of western skill and oriental beauty.
After this little research, it makes me marvel at the development of human civilization and intelligence. Lace as a traditional fabric, it made its own footprints all over the human history and the world.
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