The 72 Kinds”

Though the topic of commercialization in the Qing dynasty cotton industry has been subject of much scholarship, little attention has been given to the improvements of finishing and dyeing in Jiangnan cottons over the course of this period. Using The Cloth Classic , a late eighteenth-/ early nineteenth-century cloth merchants’ compendium, this paper investigates the material basis and technical processes producing the “72 kinds” of cloth with particular focus on the expansion of the numbers of dye colors. It argues that three primary factors enabled this expansion: intensified use of certain dyestuffs and mordants; growing deployment of the “set dyeing” technique; and dyeworks color specialization. All three factors would have contributed to economic growth and improved living standards for those who could afford dyed cloth’s higher cost. However, in being enabled by the embodied expertise of the dyer and the middleman, and the organizational structure of the cotton finishing sector, rather than cost-cutting innovations or new materials, all three factors also reveal inherent restrictions to the Jiangnan cotton sector’s competitiveness

Asian studies · China · Commercialization · Dyeing · Subject (documents · Chinese history and philosophy · Crafts, Textile, and Design · Fashion and Cultural Textiles