Mao Vuitton (Or: Watch Your Luggage)

Maovuittoncover

As best I understand, China is fast becoming America’s next obsession — and ultimate threat.

I usually avoid returning to the same source so soon, but TIME hooked me again. That said, I had to wade through thousands of words and multiple articles to find specific references to this visual. I came up with three:

The first was the story of Liu Li, a 20 year old garment worker in Kaiping. Her profile suggested that, with China’s growing prosperity, the people who have been used to sweating to make fine garments are starting to aspire to wear them.

Second, an article described a man named Wang Ling, who is taking advantage of a new tolerance for expression to criticize unscrupulous Shanghai property owners operating in collusion with the government. He tells his story to the TIME reporter in a Starbucks around the corner from the Louis Vuitton store.

Third, a progressive filmmaker pushes the idea that China is not that much different than the rest of the world. She views China as a “post-ideological” society. In other words, mall hopping is in, Communism is out — and Mao’s image has become a “Pop-art commodity.”

So, what’s with the picture?

Is this the new party uniform? Besides manufacturing everything in sight, do these guys now have designs on the design? Beyond economic and military might, is China a growing to our cultural superiority? Is the only way to rule the world these days to do it with class? Is fashion the new opiate of the masses? Wither the French?

(And, how do we stack up when Bush deals mostly in private brands — either “war ready-to-wear” or “culture of life couture?”)

(image: Time Magazine cover. June 27, 2005.)

« Prev

Target Hillary

Certain Results

jon st

oh my god! They are going to bring Mao Jackets back. First time as tragedy…second time as farce. I have visions of the scene from Sean Penn’s movie “Indian Runner”, where the Vietnam Vet sets a car a blaze; while inside kids, dressed in Mao Jackets, are dancing the night away at a party.
mugatea

That’s quite an illustration. People who wear Louis Vuitton are pompous dopes so this is not a flattering piece of art. I really like the way his head diminishes the TIME masthead. The TIME cover is such an icon that the masthead barely needs to show.
China’s third-largest oil producer is attempting to buy California-based Unocal Corp., building materials are in demand for import to China – driving cost of building up here (US), and China holds a huge chunk of our ever increasing national debt – and are hesitating to buy more.
The next war we will experience will be a trade war with our friends from China. They have a great deal of control over our ecconomic future.
http://blog.thought-mesh.net Annoying Old Guy

I note the image uses the “rising sun” style for Mao, showing a rather poor knowledge of Asian cultures.
Kitty

See also the booming plastic surgery business in China. Mao outlawed make-up and mirrors for women, and now unregulated plastic surgery is massively popular there. Time could have given Mao some dramatic face work to top it all off.
jefrog

I love this cover–it gives new meaning to the term “dialectical materialism.”
jefrog

Maybe the rising sun motif (cf. Michael Crichton’s abominable book of the same name) is meant to evoke another hysterical anti-Asian moment; anyone remember how Japan was taking over the U.S. in the 1980s?
pjr

So the sleeping Dragon has emerged from it’s self-proclaimed isolation with a flashy new style and some economic clout to boot; one wonders what will arise from a merging of Communism, Capitolism and an ancient culture which seems destined to become a major global player within 10 years. Shudder.
A nation’s treasure is in its scholars.
Chinese Proverb
http://greenimagination.blogspot.com Daniel Waldman

I think there’s another reading of this picture that’s meant to invoke American patriotism through fear. China, along with the rest of SE Asia, has become the heartland for the illegal manufacture of consumer goods. In that sense, Mao’s jacket is just another knock-off of a name brand. And because it’s not real, neither is the Communism ideology Mao iconically represents.
The fear comes out of a) the Red Scare that Mao inspires and b) the possibility (liklihood) of loosing economic dominance in the world.
gordo

When the Friedmans and the Kristofs of the world were agitating for Chinese WTO membership, they told us that trade would bring about political openness in China. A couple of years ago, they started telling us that consumer culture had rendered politics irrelevant in China, so we should all stop being so concerned about the political prisoners, environmental degredation, and industrial accidents. Who are we to question the wisdom of Shanghai’s cab drivers and college students?
This cover and the story it illustrates are Time’s way of telling us that they’re completely sold on the new Friedman/Kristof paradigm. Maoism is dead, having been replaced by a unquenchable thirst for everything Western. Who cares how the animals are treated, as long as the pigs have finally learned to walk on their hind legs?
4Fold

Idolatry, pure and simple. That, plus the American preference for simple, self-justifying myths consistent with the population’s state of denial and ignorance. Mao is irrelevant to China’s mid-range (10-20 year) strategy, which is to position itself to benifit from the forthcoming implosive disintegration of US power. I live in Thailand, where China is now the predominant economic and political force. This is true all over Asia (incluing Australia — see last week’s startling revelations from the Chinese defector in Sydney). The US is desparately trying to futher militarize Japan to jointly face-off (ecomonically and militarily)with China. This will not succeed. Meanwhile China waits for the right moment (certainly within the next five years) to financially torpedo the US. In all of this Mao is irrelevant. Yet the US media just recycles the idols and myths and the morons like Friedman and Kristof chatter on with linear projections. Hah!
http://greenimagination.blogspot.com Daniel Waldman

“Maoism is dead, having been replaced by a unquenchable thirst for everything Western.”
I read one of the Time articles in this issue, which is claiming that Hu Jitao is actually working to strengthen the Communist Party. Apparently, he wants to make it more “user friendly.”
I don’t think Mao is irrelevant at all. He is an icon that simultaneously signifies multiple meanings. To the Chinese, he’s actually a hero, despite the failed Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Before Mao, China was hardly a unified country. To Americans, he’s a powerful symbol of what “we” (in quotes to avoid over-generalizing) find reprehensible about Communism. Like I said earlier, it is as much a reference to the Red Scare, and the US’s own vulnerability.
Assamite

Jefrog is right. The sun rays are NOT a Chinese symbol, and not even Mao used them in his propaganda posters.
Anne Aldridge

Here in Europe most “Louis Vuitton” products are fakes, and everybody knows it. They’re in every street market along with pirate CDs and DVDs.
The brand is therefore losing its snob appeal. Since China is the world’s biggest counterfeiter, clothing Mao in phony Vuitton is hilarious!
hk-reader

Assamite, I beg to differ.
Mao in the center of a radiating sun was a common symbol during the cultural revolution.
“Mao Zedong, the sun risen in the east, became symbolic of the revolution itself.”
If you go the the Morning Sun website and click on the “Reddest Red Sun” link, it will lead you to a slide-show of radiating Maos.
Here is one of the typical images from the website of the great documentary by Karma Hinton “The Morning Sun”
http://www.morningsun.org/red/videos/50.jpg