9th century - The oldest evidence of trade between East and West
In 1998, local fishermen discovered a shipwreck off the coast of Belitung Island, Indonesia. The wares recovered from the cargo of the Tang dynasty shipwreck reveal both the scale and sophistication of trade in the 9th century between Tang China and the Western or Abbasid world.

The Silk road
The Silk Route International trade began with what we know as the Silk Road, a land route between Europeans (particularly the Greeks & Romans) as early as 300 BCE. The first recorded traveler is thought to be the Chinese general Zhang Qian, active during the second century BCE.
The Silk Road saw various growth spurts in its early centuries and one of the first major steps in its development happened during Alexander the Great’s expansion of the Greek Empire. In 329 BCE, Alexander founded the city of Alexandria Eschate (not to be confused with the port city of Alexandria in Egypt) along the Fergana Valley, located near the modern-day city of Khujand in Tajikistan. However, as the Mongolian Empire eventually came to an end, history began to see the sparks that would ignite the Silk Road's decline.
It was around this time that Europeans began seeking other ways to stay connected to the Chinese Empire and turned to the open ocean.

1254 - Marco Polo
On September 15, 1254, Marco Polo was born in Venice, then an independent city-state and today part of Italy. Marco, his father Nicolo, and his uncle Maffeo, while not the first Europeans to visit the area we now call China, had such a storied journey to the Far East that their story helped inspire European journeys of discovery for centuries.

The Polo family was a merchant family, which in the Venice of the 13th century often meant traveling to remote locations to secure sought-after items. Niccolo Polo and his brother Maffeo were successful traders and spent a large portion of their careers in the area around the Black Sea and as far east as modern-day Uzbekistan. In 1264, the two met the brother of the Grand Khan Kublai. He was headed to the Mongol capital of Khanbaliq, which today is Beijing, China. After a two-year journey, the brothers and the traveling party reached Khanbaliq and received a gracious welcome and an audience with the Khan.

The Khan sent the men back home with precious cargo: a man who was to be the Mongol ambassador to the Pope, a letter from the Khan asking for teachers to be sent east to instruct his people about Christianity and Western life, and a small golden tablet that granted them safe passage anywhere within the Khan's lands. The ambassador left the brothers near the halfway point of the journey, but they continued on with their letter to His Holiness.

They eventually delivered the letter and were given a reply from the Pope that was to be delivered to the Khan. The brothers set out again for Cathay (as the area of China was then known) in 1271, but this time they took other travelers: Nicolo's son Marco, who was 17, and two friars. The route, which would become known as the Silk Road, contained its share of danger and disease. Marco fell ill on the way and the group had to stop in Badakhshan (an area that is now northeastern Afghanistan and southeastern Tajikistan) for a year in order for him to recover.

Marco traveled far and wide in China, Burma and India on special missions. He became an excellent speaker who could converse in at least four languages.
After his return to Venice, he was imprisoned for several months; during that time, he dictated the story of his journeys to another prisoner, Rustichello da Pisa. When Marco was released in 1299, he had his book published with the title Il Milione, or "The Million". It was an enormous success, no easy feat in the days before the printing press.

1513 - Sea routes
Travel by sea was changing as merchant and military ships began transitioning from galleys to full-sail vessels.  This opened up trade in a completely new way – and the Portuguese Empire was making headway exploring the Indian Ocean.  They were the first to create direct trade routes with Asia by sea.
In 1513 China saw the first European trading ship arrive on the coast of Lingding Island under Portuguese explorer Jorge Álvares. Three years later, Rafael Perestrello (a cousin-in-law of famed explorer Christopher Columbus) arrived on China's mainland shores.  Others soon followed, such as Fernão Pires de Andrade and Tomé Pires, who established formal commercial and diplomatic relations between the Ming Dynasty and Portugal.

Silks, spices, tea and porcelain.
These and other exotic products of China have been eagerly sought by Europeans since Roman times. But the land route through the Euroasian deserts along the "Silk Route" allowed only a trickle of Oriental products to reach the Western World. In the 16th century the sea route to the Orient was discovered.
In the centuries that followed, the seafaring nations of Europe vied for control of the China Trade. In the early 18th century, the collection of Oriental products became an obsession among the European aristocracy. Separate rooms and castles were built to display the collections of the most devoted, such as Alexander the Strong of Saxony.

It was to be the end of the 17th century, or even the beginning of the 18th, before all the Western European maritime powers were represented by companies on the new trade routes to the Far East.
Smaller powers with access to the sea, such as Denmark, Sweden, the Austrian Netherlands and Prussia got the chance to make a name for themselves, next to the old powers of Spain and Portugal, and even to the newly established powers of England, the Dutch Republic (V.O.C.) and France, which meanwhile had expanded to become world empires.

Perry Expedition to Japan
The Perry Expedition was a diplomatic and military undertaking to Japan during its Bakumatsu period. The Expedition involved two separate trips of steamships of the United States Navy, which took place during 1852-1854. The goals of the expedition included exploration, surveying, the establishment of diplomatic relations, and the "opening" of Japan to trade with the United States.

The Perry Expedition had a colossal influence on 19th century Japan, leading to interaction with, and influence by, the outside world, the collapse of the Tokugawa shogunate and the Meiji Restoration. In the Western world, the opening of Japan to trade led to a period of Japonisme in decorative and fine arts and culture.

The Influence of Japonisme on the Parisian Fashion Journals 1860-1900
In the late 1800s, Japanese dress was increasingly influenced by the West. Many Japanese men and women combined their traditional clothing with Western apparel. For example, a man wore his short coat (haori) with Western-style trousers. Some women wore American-style blouses or European-style shoes under their kimonos.

In the second half of the 19th century, Europe’s enthusiasm for the hitherto almost unknown Japanese culture was enormous. Since fashion always seeks the new and original, the newly discovered Japanese aesthetic was predestined to shape the style and taste of an entire era, from 1860 to 1900 and beyond.