The dual consequences of cultural localization: How exposed short stockings subvert and sustain global cultural hierarchy

The clothes worn by contemporary urban Chinese should not appear unfamiliar at first glance. Suits, jeans, polo shirts, short skirts, and other items that were rarities in China twenty years ago have now turned into staples of many urbanites’ wardrobes. Moreover, in contrast to contemporary India and Japan, traditionalistic types of dress are seldom worn in everyday life. Nonetheless, closer examination reveals dramatic local mutations of Western dress and styles. This essay focuses on one of the most widely adopted of these sartorial localizations: exposed short stockings. By contemporary Western conventions, women’s hosiery should be long enough to have the first several inches of the top of the stocking covered from view by pants or skirt—the
shorter the hemline, the longer the hosiery ought to be. In contrast, many Chinese women wear stockings exposing the entire top beneath a skirt’s hemline. This practice could be seen by non-Chinese observers as a deviant way to wear stockings that evokes images of untidiness, eroticism, and indecency.