The Silk Scarf: How a Fashion Object is Implicated as Cultural Semiotics of Elegant Female Figure in China from Twentieth Century Collective Memory
Introduction
A scarf itself has a long history of transformation. The occasions for a scarf can also be flexible based on personal preferences. Existing documents demonstrates that scarves were introduced by the Egyptian Queen Nefertiti in 350 BC and were used as tools to distinguish one’s social status. Under the Chinese Emperor Cheng, scarves made of cloth were used to mark military rank. Certain colors in the scarves are strictly limited due to the indicated hierarchical relationships. As time goes by, with the proceeding modernization, the functions for a scarf becomes more and more diverse. Scarves started to be not only the semiotics for social status but also a expression for personal aesthetics (n.d, 2022). In Chinese society since 1950s, silk scarf emphasizes females’ individual identity and uniqueness beyond their social group identities due to the wearer’s corporal experience under the social context of political and economical changes and the scarf’s romantic representation on medias.