“Traditional Chinese Clothing” has been popular in the world through the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties, the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States, the Qin and Han dynasties, the Wei, Jin, North and South dynasties, the Sui and Tang dynasties, the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, and in modern times, with distinctive features, mainly Chinese Hanfu. This article will show you the “beauty of traditional Chinese clothing” in five different periods.
The Beauty of traditional Chinese clothing- Western Han Dynasty
The most representative clothing of the Western Han Dynasty is the Su Sha Danyi (素纱襌衣), a very light garment: from the collar to the hem, are 1.28 meters long; the sleeves are 1.9 meters long; even so, this wide robes with large sleeves are only 49 grams, and when folded, can fit into a small matchbox. The Su Sha Danyi was unearthed in 1972 at the Mawangdui Han Tomb No. 1 in Changsha, and is now collected in the Hunan Provincial Museum.
Su Sha Danyi is not just a piece of clothing, but the result of the cultivation and spinning industry of the early Western Han Dynasty.
The Beauty of traditional Chinese clothing – Wei and Jin
The Wei and Jin dynasties were the most politically chaotic and socially painful times in ancient China, yet they were an era of great freedom and liberation in spiritual history, the richest in wisdom and the most intense in passion. It can be seen from the characteristics of clothes.
The color of the lower skirt can be solid or inter-colored, and the skirt can be pleated or not, a variety of combinations, at your choice. Ruffle decoration can be added to the edge of the skirt and called a Yuan skirt (缘裙).
The Beauty of traditional Chinese clothing – Tang Dynasty
During the Tang Dynasty, the country was unified and the economy was prosperous, so the clothing forms became more open and the costumes became more and more gorgeous. Women's clothing in the Tang Dynasty was characterized by the unification of Qun (裙, skirt), Shan (衫, shirt), and Pei (帔, shawl).
At that time, it was popular to wear a kind of short clothes outside the shirt, usually without slit short sleeves or sleeveless, which was called “Beizi (褙子)” in later times. The color of the skirt in the Tang Dynasty was gorgeous, red, purple, yellow, and green, and the red skirt was especially popular.
The Beauty of traditional Chinese clothing – Song Dynasty
In the Song Dynasty, the spirit of classical Chinese aesthetics developed to the extreme, the Song people's clothing is very light and simple, was a time when thinness was the beauty, so naturally, the clothes showed more thinness, making people look very thin and tall.
During the Song Dynasty, the Baidie skirt (百迭裙) was very popular. The Baidie skirt is a one-piece skirt with pleats in the middle and skirt doors on both sides, and everyone loved to wear it, from the court ladies to the commoners.
The Beauty of traditional Chinese clothing – Ming Dynasty
Compared with the Tang Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty is the obvious opposite of the ratio of dresses and skirts, from short tops to long bottoms, gradually lengthening the tops and shortening the length of the skirts.
There are many interesting details hidden in the horse-faced skirt: there are two gold woven patterns on the top and bottom of the skirt, the top one is called the knee Lan (膝襕) and the bottom one is called the bottom Lan (底襕). When the knee Lan is narrower than the bottom Lan (as in the picture above), it looks more girly and lively, on the contrary (as in the picture below), it looks more dignified and gorgeous.
The beauty of traditional Chinese costumes cannot be summed up by just a few sets of clothes or dynasties, it is very profound and colorful. We look forward to showing you more traditional Chinese clothing!
