Hey everyone—a little busy as of late, but rest assured that I am not dead! I just had to pop back to belatedly report on the 2022 Scholar's Garden Hanfu Outing organized by Yulan/Chlobaltblue in our hanfu discord server community!
This half-day event consisted of a photoshoot and group dinner on July 30th, 2022 in the New York Chinese Scholar's Garden with a small group of eight people attending. People from all over New England joined us for this outing, from Conneticut residents to Boston students flying all the way up to Staten Island. Unfortunately I was not one of those people, but I'm here to share with you all the pictures and experience that my sister provided! I'll also be doing a brief summary of some of the outfits that everyone is wearing.
Some of our members had their own sets, while others borrowed from each other. A majority of our outfits were Wei/Jin Style ()outfits which consisted of a zhequn, cross collar top, and daxiushan. Ani also wore a Ming-style summer set, with a modified zhuyao with pearl buttons in the front to mimic the zimu buttons of a zhuyao and a Ming helingshan, a style that greatly resembles the Song beizi. The light pink and green go together perfectly! Ying wore a chest-high shanqun set with a delicate sheer cape and some beautiful hair flowers.
Yulan or @chlobaltblue on instagram is here wearing a Song-style modified set that she likes to call her blueberry set, consisting of a diaodai camisole resembling the Song dynasty moxiong and a zhequn. She also provided the clothing for several of our other members and a whole lot of hand fans, because what's hanfu without fans? Of course, we also had plenty of male participants in our party this time—here's Shen in a very handsome banbi ruqun set! Made with a bamboo concept and a lot of sheer layers, this set also came with a small yaopei or waist ornament in faux jade.
We had two photographers for this occasion at the New York Chinese Scholar's Garden, which features a lot of really fun photo spots like the bridge, buildings, and water features. Located in the Snug Harbor Cultural Center, a part of the Staten Island Botanical Garden, this garden was constructed in 1998-1999 by Chinese designers and builders from Suzhou, supporting the metropolitan Chinese-American population, and still stands to this day. Its beautiful walkways and pavilions were designed according to Ming dynasty style architecture with beautiful swallowtail roofs and moon doors. Here are some more group pictures of the whole crew together:
The trip was concluded with a group dinner at a nearby restaurant. Those participating made plenty of new friends and we were really happy to see everyone's faces in person! We hope to be able to organize more outings and meetups in the future to allow people a way to participate in this movement and make new friends with mutual interests—there's another article coming up about our San Francisco Bay Area outing that happened recently as well. If you're in the server or interested in joining the server, join to keep an eye out for more meetup dates in your area in the future!
