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Dr. Mei MEI RADO

Assistant Professor
Bard Graduate Center (New York)

Fellowship Project

Dr. Mei Mei Rado spent six months at The Palace Museum in Beijing, China, where she conducted research on Qing court production of European-style silks and tapestries during the eighteenth century and studied the terminology and classification of Qing imperial textiles. She also gained experience in textile-related curatorial and conservation work.

Biography

Dr. Mei Mei Rado is Assistant Professor at the Bard Graduate Center in New York. Before her career at the Brad Graduate Center, she was the Associate Curator of Costume and Textiles at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. From 2017 to 2019, Dr. Rado was a part-time professor at The School of Art and Design History and Theory at Parsons School of Design in New York.

Dr. Rado received her M.A. from the University of Chicago and her Ph.D. in History of Decorative Arts from the Bard Graduate Center in New York. Her doctoral dissertation discussed the changes in the design and weaving process of Qing textiles as well as their use in display under the influence of Europe. She specializes in the history of both Western and Eastern Asian textiles and dress from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, with a focus on intercultural exchanges.

Recent Development and Achievement

    Dr. Mei Mei Rado is currently working on her book manuscript The Empire’s New Cloth: Western Textiles at the 18-Century Qing Court, which was supported by a postdoctoral grant from the American Council of Learned Societies. She is also developing and conducting research on the modern Chinese textile and fashion collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art for a special exhibition.

Selected Publication(s)

  • Rado, M. M. (2018). The lady’s fan: fashion accessories and modern femininity in Republican China. In Pyun, K., & Wong, A. (Eds.), Fashion, Identity, and Power in Modern Asia (pp. 193-227). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Rado, M. M. (2017). Qing court’s encounters with European tapestries: the tenture chinoise and beyond. In Bertrand, P. F., & Maupas, A. N. (Eds.), Arachné: un regard critique sur l’histoire de la tapisserie (pp. 119-138). Bordeaux: Université Bordeaux Montaigne.
  • Rado, M. M. (2016). When modernity and nationalism intersect: textiles for dress in Republican China. INHA Perspective: Les Textiles, 1, 180-187.
  • Rado, M. M. (2015). The hybrid orient: Japonisme and Nationalism of the Takashimaya Mandarin Robes. Fashion Theory, 19(5), 583-616.
  • Rado, M. M. (2015). Encountering Magnificence: European Silks at the Qing Court during the Eighteenth Century. In P. Chu and D. Ning (Eds.), Qing Encounters: Artistic Exchanges between China and the West (pp. 58-75). Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute.
  • Rado, M. M. (2015). Imagery of Chinese Dress. In The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Ed.), China: Through the Looking Glass. New Haven: Yale University Press.
  • Rado, M. M. (2014). 中國外銷披肩與西方時尚 [Chinese Export Shawls and Western Fashion]. In China National Silk Museum (Ed.), Far-reaching Elegance Magnificent Chinese Export Silk Collection of China National Silk Museum. Hangzhou: China National Silk Museum.
  • Rado, M. M. (2014). Images of Opera Characters Related to the Qing Court. In J. T. Zeitlin & Y. Li (Eds.), Performing Images: Opera in Chinese Visual Culture. Chicago: Smart Museum of Art & University of Chicago Press.
  • Rado, M. M. (2014). The Qipao and the Female Body in 1930s China. In P. Mears & G. B. Boyer (Eds.), Elegance in the Age of Crisis: Fashions of the 1930s (Fashion Institute of Technology). New Haven: Yale University Press.
  • Rado, M. M. (2013). Shanghai Glamour: New Women 1910s-40s [Exhibition catalogue].
  • 梅玫(2013)。〈清宮西洋錦 – 以乾隆二十三年大閱圖中所繪鞍韂與橐鞬為中心〉。《故宮文物月刊》,367。