As Women’s Day approaches, the People’s Daily New Media Center has prepared an exquisite Women’s Day gift for Chinese women. On the evening of March 7, the People's Daily client launched the H5 "Look! Here are your beautiful looks in different eras." A large number of female netizens have used H5 to "wear" clothes from different eras and show them in Moments and online social media. For a time, "Pictures of Han Chinese Clothing Through the Ages" flooded the screen, showing the beauty of Chinese women's clothing.
People’s Daily client invites H5 "Look! Here Are Your Beautiful Appearances in Different Eras" academic director Dr. Jia Xizeng, a teacher at the Academy of Fine Arts of Tsinghua University, wrote an article revealing the historical and cultural knowledge behind "Hanfu Pictures of the Past Dynasties".
I believe that the secret behind H5 is equally amazing!
Read the full text:
H5 "Look! Here are your beautiful looks in different eras", which displays a total of 10 sets of female clothing styles from nine periods including the Warring States, Han Dynasty, Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, Tang Dynasty, Song Dynasty, Yuan Dynasty, Ming Dynasty, Qing Dynasty and modern times. These beautiful costumes, as small as a hairpin, the pattern of the cuffs, or as large as the tailoring proportions of the costumes, are carefully designed based on historical objects and revised repeatedly, striving to restore history and restore the true beauty of Chinese women of all ages.
Warring States Period Clothing
Warring States Period women’s clothing style is the deep clothing of the next system. Deep clothing began to appear at the turn of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, and became popular in the Warring States Period and the Western Han Dynasty. Judging from the image data, the popularity of deep clothing is extremely wide. The cuffs, placket and bottom hem are all decorated with brocade edges. The character shapes refer to the "Dragon and Phoenix Ladies" and lacquer figurines from the Warring States Period. The patterns on women's robes of the Warring States period come from the dragon, phoenix and tiger embroidered Luo Chan clothes in Mashan, Jiangling. The stitching method is lock embroidery, and the embroidery threads come in red-brown, brown, yellow-green, khaki, orange-red, black, gray and other colors. On one side of the pattern is a phoenix bird with a flower crown on its head, wings spread out, and a small dragon on its feet; on the other side is a colorful tiger chasing the dragon, which is resisting.
Han Dynasty Clothing
In order to keep warm, people in the Han Dynasty were accustomed to wearing layers of clothing, with collars and cuffs exposed layer by layer in a "triple clothing" style. The collars, cuffs, etc. of these three-layer robes are often decorated with colorful edges. The clothes are embroidered and the brocade is the edge. They are revealed layer by layer, forming a rich contrast. The style of women's clothing in the Han Dynasty refers to the image of Mrs. Xin Zhui wearing a curved robe in silk paintings. The sleeves of the robe are wide and gradually arc upward from the sleeve to the cuff, forming a convergent sleeve edge at the end of the sleeve, which is sometimes called "Qi". The wide part of the sleeve is called the sleeve. Because its shape is similar to the neck of a cow, it is also called "Niu Hu".
The pattern on women’s robes in the Han Dynasty is the dogwood pattern. Cornus officinalis is a small tree with a pungent aroma. It has the cultural symbol of dispelling evil and wishing longevity. According to the ancient custom, on the Double Ninth Festival, which falls on September 9th in the lunar calendar, wearing dogwood can dispel evil spirits and ward off evil. It is the first plant pattern that can be accurately identified in the history of ancient Chinese textile patterns.
Wei and Jin Dynasty Clothing
Wei and Jin Dynasty women’s clothing inherited the Qin and Han Dynasty clothing system, usually wearing a jacket or shirt on the upper body and a skirt on the lower body. The shirt is wide and wide, as the poem "Little Hanging Hands" written by Emperor Jianwen of Liang Dynasty goes, "The small hanging hands are restored, and the wide sleeves brush the world." At this time, women's clothing was popular with hanging hems, and some even tied their knees in front of the body with numbers on both sides. A long triangular ribbon shows the elegance of flying clothes and the charm of riding the wind to reach immortality. The clothing styles of women in the Wei and Jin Dynasties refer to the clothing styles of goddesses in Gu Kaizhi's "Luo Shen Fu Tu". From the Eastern Han Dynasty to the Wei and Jin Dynasties, it was popular for women to wear a bunch of hair hanging down on both sides of double buns and high buns, which was called "chuibi" or "partial beard".
Tang Dynasty Clothing
Women's clothing in the Tang Dynasty was most popular with short sleeves, short jackets and high-waisted long skirts covering the breasts. Meng Haoran's poem "Spring Love" says, "When I sit, my belt is lingering in the slender grass, and when I walk, my skirt sweeps away plum blossoms." The poem says that because of the length of a woman's skirt, she can use her skirt to sweep away the plum blossoms scattered on the ground. The styles of women's clothing in the Tang Dynasty refer to the painted female pottery figurines and the female images in the "Tampering Picture" by the Tang Dynasty painter Zhang Xuan.
In the Tang Dynasty, women’s buns were refurbished and emerged in endless styles, which was one of the typical features of the female image in this period. An updo is a solid hairstyle. In the early Tang Dynasty, most hairstyles were in the shape of a cloud. By the time of Emperor Taizong, buns became increasingly taller and more diverse, including high bun, Japanese bun, low bun, wind bun, Wuman bun, concentric bun, flower bun, Leyou bun, half-turned bun, etc.
Song Dynasty clothing
Different from the Tang Dynasty women’s plump, muscular and heroic style, Song Dynasty women pursued a simple, elegant, subtle and graceful style. The beauty of Xiaojiabiyu is subtle yet charming. Among women's clothing in the Song Dynasty, the most distinctive and popular style was undoubtedly the gauze. Guzi, also written as "backzi", is a kind of clothing worn by both men and women, especially popular among women. It can be seen in many Song Dynasty paintings. Most kuzi are decorated with gold-printed edges on the placket, cuffs and side seams of the armpits, which are sometimes called "collar wipes". In the Song Dynasty, women's skirts were popular in styles such as "pomegranate", "thousand pleats" and "baidie". The one called "thousand pleats" is a women's skirt with thin pleats, made of five-color gauze, with dense pleats all over the body. The so-called "baidie" skirts are made of six, eight or even twelve pieces of material, with fine pleats added in the middle. As described in the poem, "the skirt has fine pleats like eyebrow wrinkles". This was also the period when hairpin culture in ancient China was at its peak, and flower crowns naturally became a symbol of the times for women in the Song Dynasty.
Yuan Dynasty Costumes
The costumes of the Mongolian and Yuan Dynasties reflect not only the cultural differences between the Mongolian and Han ethnic groups, but also the styling differences between the northern and southern regions. The first clothing worn by Mongolian women in the Yuan Dynasty featured the "Si Si crown" as a characteristic of the era. The silicon crown is cylindrical, with a wide crown and narrow waist, protruding from the front, with wing-shaped earrings hanging on each side, and several green flower feathers sticking up from the crown at the back. Li Zhichang, a native of the Song Dynasty, said in "Changchun Zhenren's Journey to the West" that "the end is like a goose or duck, so it is called Gugu." The robe is the main type of women's clothing in the Yuan Dynasty. The robes are mostly wide, long enough to reach the floor, with long sleeves and narrow mouth. Women's robes in the Yuan Dynasty mainly included red brocade, Jibei brocade, Meng Rong, and Suo Li. These were all expensive robe styles and were often worn by concubines. The colors are mainly red, yellow, brown, carmine, and cockscomb purple.
Clothes of the Ming Dynasty
Women's clothing in the Ming Dynasty was popular in the form of upper jacket and lower skirt. The upper jacket is a cross-collar, long-sleeved short jacket, and some also have patches woven and embroidered with exquisite patterns on the chest and back. The color of the skirt was still light in the early Ming Dynasty. Although there were patterns, they were not obvious. In the early years of Chongzhen, most skirts were plain white. Even if there were embroidery patterns, they were only decorated with a strip of lace one or two inches below the skirt as a presser foot. By the end of the Ming Dynasty, the decoration of skirts became more and more elaborate, the width of the skirt also increased to ten, and the pleats on the waist became denser and denser. Each pleat has a color. When the breeze blows, the color is like moonlight, so it is called "Moonlight Skirt" . In the late Ming Dynasty, unisex cloaks became popular, and women's cloaks could be worn with stand-up collared coats and skirts underneath. In spring and autumn, a cape is worn outside a stand-up collared or diagonal-breasted shirt, which is the most common way to match a cape. These combinations are very common in novels of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, such as the description in "Journey to the West": "I saw the black man, wearing a black and green silk coat, a crow-blue and white silk cape, and a raven-horned soft hat. ”
Qing Dynasty Clothing
The cloak is the casual clothing of upper-class women in the Qing Dynasty. It is generally worn outside regular robes and shirts. It is shaped like a round collar, straight body, and is long enough to cover the feet, with the high soles of the flag shoes exposed. The right lapel of the big lapel. The left and right trains are open to the armpits, and the top is decorated with Ruyi cloud heads with ribbons and embroidered edges, forming a symmetrical form. The double-roll sleeves are folded for daily wear, and the sleeves are elbow-length. The stitching can also be removed for wearing. The cuffs are decorated with beautifully embroidered interchangeable sleeve heads, which are easy to replace. Women's skirts in the Qing Dynasty were shaped like horse-faced skirts. Horse-faced skirts were composed of two identical skirt pieces. When wearing, the buttons or ropes on the waist of the skirt needed to be fastened. Pleats are made on both sides of the skirt, and pleats are pressed from both sides to the middle, which is called "downwind pleats". The skirt waist here is mostly made of white cloth, which means growing old together. In the late Qing Dynasty, women began to use wigs, which were made of copper wire and covered with wigs made of black satin or velvet. They were placed on the top of the head and fixed with hairpins, tassels, hairpins, etc. The decorative ornaments are called "flag heads" and commonly known as "big wings".
Modern and Modern Clothing
Twentieth CenturyIn the 1920s and 1930s, Chinese women wore jackets and skirts. Women's coats mostly adopt the style of right lapel, and the collar, sleeves and hem are also varied. The more sophisticated jackets are mostly made of silk fabrics and are made using traditional decorative techniques, forming a national costume rich in oriental style. Among modern Chinese women's clothing, the most distinctive and influential clothing is the cheongsam. Influenced by Western culture, Shanghai cheongsam underwent major changes during this period. The originally wide silhouette began to become tight, able to express the graceful body curves of Oriental women. The closed nature of the Qing Dynasty cheongsam was broken by the high slits on both sides. Others boldly use transparent lace materials to wear with petticoats underneath. From the perspective of clothing design, this kind of cheongsam uses many design elements and is very creative. It is called "special style" cheongsam.
The above character styles not only maintain the contemporary characteristics and classical beauty of ancient Chinese women's clothing, but also convey the cultural connotation of traditional Chinese clothing, avoid the bad habits of imagining the clothing styles of ancient Chinese characters in some movies and TV dramas, and take into account the needs of the contemporary public. Aesthetic habits and the spirit of the times. At the same time, for the sake of entertainment and communication, these shapes should echo each other. When put together as a whole, they maintain a certain degree of independence in posture and color, and avoid the confusion of postures. Repetition and sameness. From ancient times to the present, Chinese women in every era have shown unique beauty, not only in clothing, but also in spiritual traits.
Chinese women are becoming more and more confident, independent and beautiful! Happy holidays to all women!
Come, click here to experience:
Look! Here are your beautiful looks in different eras
Author: Jia Xizeng, a teacher in the Dyeing, Weaving and Fashion Art Design Department of the Academy of Fine Arts, Tsinghua University, has studied the history of Chinese clothing for nearly 20 years. He has published national-level textbooks such as "History of Chinese Costume Art" and "History of Chinese and Foreign Clothing". He is the lead teacher and director of the national-level quality course and Tsinghua University's top-quality course "History of Chinese Fashion". He is a member of the Academic Committee of the China Fashion Designers Association and China Museum Association serviceMember of the Board of Directors of the Installation Professional Committee.
Drawing: Gong Han
(Source: People’s Daily client)
