The Ushioda Initiative of Arts held its seventh research meeting on December 22, 2022, in which LIU Lingfang (The University of Tokyo/JSPS Research Fellow) presented “Acceptance of the Veil in East Asia in the 20th Century.” This talk was about how Western wedding veils were introduced to China and Japan during the Republic of China (1912–1949) using news and magazines.
In the early 1910s, the new trend of “civilized marriage” swept into traditional Chinese weddings. For women at that time, it was difficult to fully westernize their dress as men did. Therefore, it can be assumed that the addition of the wedding veil, a feature of Western wedding costumes, became one practice by which women expressed a trendy, fashionable image. Since the 1930s, the emergence of the group wedding and the practice of printing images of brides in newspapers and advertisements contributed greatly to the use of the veil. The acceptance of veil was reintegrated with tradition. During the Republic of China, the style of wedding dresses gradually diversified from the top-and-skirt style in the 1910s to the combination of cheongsam and veil in the late 1920s. The color of veils also evolved from red to peach and finally to the Western style of pure white. Meanwhile, in Japan, veils were treated as a popular commodity rather than as part of a dowry, as they were in China.
The veil and its multiple symbolic meanings is an important research theme. It represents an opportunity to deepen our understanding of the relationship between modernization, body, and ceremony. Many interesting perspectives emerged during the following discussion. This included the influence of the face-covering tradition that came alongside the acceptance of veils, the ambiguity of the “East-Meets-West” dichotomy from a multi-ethnic perspective, and the role of veils in the evolution of the female identity and women’s social expectations. This research meeting presented a precious opportunity to discuss veils’ roles during one of the most significant ceremonies of a woman’s life during the past century.
Japanese Report by WANG Muyun (EAA Project Researcher)

