I. Research Context: Studying the 2000s as Retro Style

and ‘fashionable bodies’ that go beyond and sometimes supersede institutional

practices and structures of knowledge production like the traditional museum. ”8 This

work builds on existing research on subcultural style and Chinese fashion, but brings

attention to a specific style that is very overlooked and a rather new scene that has not

yet been fully explored.

I. Research Context: Studying the 2000s as Retro Style

The fact that young people so often turn back to styles from the past and

previous generations of youths shows that time in fashion is not always linear. 9 The

same etymological root of the terms “ a la mode ” and “ modernité” signifies that

fashion means newness. 10 Despite the apparent newness of fashion, it is a common

practice in fashion to refer to earlier trends and transform previous styles into new

“retro” trends. 11 Existing studies on “retro” and “nostalgia” help to understand the

revival of the 2000s style in China in various ways. This chapter focuses on the

concept of “retro” and how it is used in fashion. It also discusses how fashion can be a

material carrier of memory and the possible underlying emotion of nostalgia. The

discussion of the literature further includes a discussion of the theoretical orientation

8 Pham, Minh-Ha T.

“Archival intimacies: Participatory media and the fashion histories of US women of color. ” Fashion, Style & Popular Culture 2(1) (2015): 107-122: 116. 9 Evans, Caroline and Vaccari, Alessandra. “Time in Fashion: An Introductory Essay. ” In Time in Fashion: Industrial, Antilinear and Uchronic Temporalities, Evans, Caroline and Vaccari, Alessandra (eds.): 3-36. New York: Bloomsbury 2020. 10 Evans, Caroline. “Multiple, Movement, Model, Mode: The Mannequin Parade 1900-1929. ” In Fashion and modernity, Evans, Caroline and Breward, Christopher (eds.). Oxford: Berg 2005. 11 Hjemdahl, Anne-Sofie. “Fashion Time: Enacting Fashion as Cultural Heritage and as an Industry at the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design in Oslo. ” Fashion Practice 8(1) (2016): 98-116.