Migrant Women Walking Down the Cheap Road Modernization and Being Fashionable in Shanghai

This chapter examines how new definitions of the “Chinese modern woman” affect the lives of rural-urban migrant women, with a focus on the way these women are interpellated as modern and fashionable on the Qipulu Clothing Wholesale Market in Shanghai, also known as the “Cheap Road.” The chapter analyzes how the spatial organization and commercial strategies of the Cheap Road allow rural migrant women a sense of being “modern,” and explores narratives from these migrants, focusing on their consumer experience to explore how they transform themselves in response to the globalizing cityscape. This chapter argues that the Cheap Road is organized spatially and commercially to sell rural women access to the images of “modern” and the Chinese Dream.