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In the nineteenth century, British people living abroad were accustomed to dressing up. It has been argued that diplomatic and army dress uniforms were part of what kept the Empire going. Photographs in the HPC Collection exemplify the flummery of the British ruling classes but this image (26386) speaks of a rather different aesthetic, albeit one involving clothes. Across the globe, wherever there were British residents, there was fancy dress. The year is 1889 and the place Beijing but it could easily be Delhi, Durban, Melbourne or Ottawa.Uncaptioned photography in album entitled ‘The Chinese Customs in Peking 1889-1891’. National Archives file, C0 1069/421. Crown copyright image reproduced by permission of The National Archives, London, England .Verity Wilson ((Verity Wilson, who teaches the history of design on the joint master’s course at the Royal College of Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Prior to that, she worked for 25 years at the V&#38;A as a curator in the Far Eastern Department where her area of expertise was East Asian textiles and dress. Her current work centres around fancy dress and disguise, and she is particularly interested in the relationship between photography and dressing up. She is the outgoing editor of the peer-reviewed dress studies journal Costume.)), Fancy dress, far from home, Vizualizing China Blog,  August 13, 2014Full text