Evidence

Early Hanfu was also imitating costumes from TV dramas and films, without much evidence, which we refer to as "the tears of the era". This includes the fairy-like costumes of the Wei-Jin style, with Hua Lian of Han Shang as a classic example. Initially, it was designed for the series of clothes with the spirit of the Wei-Jin period, mainly used for realistic ancient style photography, similar to studio costumes, but not sold as Hanfu. Due to its ethereal beauty, it became popular because of good sales. However, the design references were from Hong Kong and Taiwan's TV dramas and films, without any historical traces, so most people do not recognize Wei-Jin style clothing as Hanfu. The phrase "The passerby is as beautiful as jade, the young master is unique in the world" probably describes the young man in the video. His name is Lu Baitcha, and he is considered a top figure in the Hanfu community. Wearing white, he is an unparalleled young master; when he ties up his hair, picks up a sword, and rides a horse, he appears heroic and domineering, like a young general. He has been called the "male god of gu-style" by many netizens.…

So maybe you’ve been interested in hanfu for a while, and you’ve vaguely started to pick out the differences between Ming Dynasty aoqun and Tang Dynasty heziqun, but you still have no clue what the order of the time periods are or even what they were characterized by. Upon a quick sift through Wikipedia, there’s just wayyyyy too much information to process, and you don’t even know what information to look for—what matters to your understanding of hanfu culture. Fear not! Here’s a compendium of what you need to know about the historical context of hanfu. The Structure of Ancient Chinese History There’s a phenomenon in Chinese history that we call the Dynastic Cycle. Ancient China was ruled over by many different time periods called Dynasties, each with a family of rulers, and most of these follow the same general scheme: the central ruling power is established, the population goes up and the country flourishes, corruption starts affecting the political scheme, people revolt, and the country either dissolves into several warring states or gets conquered by another group of people. Then one state emerges victorious over the other ones or the invaders, the next dynasty is established, and the cycle…