Less than three decades ago, when the Chinese bought cloth or clothes, they would have had to use a government-issued coupon. Today the Chinese fashion industry is one of the most dynamic in the world - it not only supplies fashions to the increasingly discerning domestic market, but also provides one third of the clothing sold in the global market. How did this phenomenal transition come about? What can the growth of the Chinese fashion industry tell us about the post-Mao China? What roles do the local and the global play in the dramatic changes? This book offers a historically-informed, ethnographically-grounded, and interpretive analysis of contemporary Chinese fashion and the fashion industry. It examines the interplay of state politics and market forces, the local social and cultural factors and the global political economy both in the rise of the Chinese fashion industry, and in the life and work of Chinese fashion professionals. As the first ethnographic account of the Chinese fashion industry in the post-Mao era, The Chinese Fashion Industry combines firsthand materials with sophisticated cultural analysis to offer new insights, and will be of interest to students and scholars of fashion, anthropology, and China.