Exoticism in Design - Dr. Clare Rose.

‘Anyone employing Orientalism, which is the habit for dealing with questions, objects, qualities and regions deemed Oriental, will ...fix what he is talking or thinking about with a word or phrase, which then is considered either to have acquired, or more simply to be, reality...The tense they employ is the timeless eternal' - Edward Said, Orientalism,  quoted in Bhabha in Evans and Hall, p372

Orientalism prior to the 1900's was seen with different attitudes to the different cultures, the attitudes of the Europeans was based on myth. Europe saw the Chinese and Indian's for their arts and valuable products and the Japanese and south east asians were seen in light for their exotic ways of life. The Europeans wanted this richness for themselves. In 1761 the Poganda at Kew Gardens was put up by King George the third, around this time 'Oriental style' became fashionable to the rich and elite. At our visit to the V&A after we saw a Chinese style chippendale which dated back towards the 1770's.

In 1815 the Royal Pavilion in Brighton was decorated in a Chinoiserie style, which pushed the trend further, after succeeding the Chinese in the Opium War in 1842 the British now held new trading laws which changed the next 20 years. America forced the Japanese to open their country in 1854 and in 1862 the Japanese show at the International Exhibition in London. From the exhibition and people seeing how amazing the Japanese style of art was in comparison to Europe's artists and designers started to try to copy their style, Manet, for example paints the portrait of Zola in the style of the Japanese in 1867.

‘In a way, all my work is founded  on Japanese art…Japanese art,  decadent in its own country,  takes root again among the  French Impressionist artists’ –

 Vincent van Gogh, letter, 1887

From the 1800's the europeans were utterly fascinated by the eastern cultures, they saw it as exotic and they were even more interested with the women whom were covered from head to toe and hidden. This sparked an underlying buzz as such which gave artists the chance to give admirers of their work a 'look' at what went on. It was mostly because of their differences with the western woman, she wore a corset and a bare face, and the oriental woman, she wore a veil which hid her face and loose clothing.

J A D Ingres, The Turkish Bath 1862 

We entered the 1900's and the strive for all thing oriental still went on, Paul Poiret opened his independent fashion hour in 1904 and in 1909 he showed an oriental theme throughout the show. The Russian Ballet performed shows such as `Cleopatra', `Prince Igor',  `Scheherezade' and `Firebird' which were all influenced heavily by oriental customs. Even now to this day we are still just as intrigued by orientalism, in fashion, art etc but it is shown in a less obvious manor.