Abstract

Costume culture as the sedimentary deposits of a nation plays a very important role in culture world. This thesis firstly shows the differences between Chinese and western costume, and then analyzes the differences from three aspects, that is, geographical conditions, historical background and cultural ideas. It tries to find out the different characteristics between Chinese and western costume and the same developing trend of these two. At the end of the paper, it points out that with the development of economy, Chinese costume culture cannot be assimilated by western costume culture. On the contrary, it can “select the refined and discard the crude”, carry forward domestic costume culture further and build up its own costume culture even the whole nation’s independent culture.

Key words: costume culture, China and western world, differences, comparison

摘要

服饰作为文化的一部分在世界上扮演着一个非常重要的角色。因为服饰是时代的折射，是文化的沉淀。本文从中西方服饰文化差异的表现入手，分析产生差异的原因，分别从地理环境、历史背景、文化思想展开，发现了中西方服饰文化差异的特征以及两者发展的共同趋势，得出结论：随着经济的进一步发展，本国服饰文化不能被西方服饰文化同化，而应该“取其精华、去其糟粕”，进一步的发扬本国服饰文化，建立服饰文化的独立性，乃至整个民族的文化独立性。

关键词：服饰文化；中西方；差异；比较

1．    Introduction
The Chinese nation has a five-thousand-year history of civilization. And the splendid and magnificent Chinese culture especially from Tang Dynasty has influenced the whole world for thousands of years. Among the culture world, costume plays an essential role, for costume is not only a product of culture but also a carrier of it. All of the costume is the combination of human being’s creativity both in spirit and material. It represents the characters of its culture, and its connotation not only has historical significance but also has ethical implication.
Recently, with the increasingly rapid pace of China’s reform and opening, Chinese economy has developed fast. China’s development is geared to higher international standard. Everyday we can see the imported goods in every corner of China. With these things enriching our lives, we need to be aware of one phenomenon that is the draining of Chinese culture, especially in the field of costume. Korean, Japanese and Western styles are making their costume widely known, while Chinese national costume and traditional costume culture appear to weaken slowly. Recently the developing direction of Chinese economy has been convergent to the western world, and with the deepening of globalization, the oriental element of our costume culture is draining gradually.