Jiang Shuying

Our previous articles have covered the costume components of the Song emperors, but today we focus on the composition and details of the Song empress costumes, using the Empress Cao's costume from the Qing Ping Yue TV series as a reference for comparison with museum collections. From the makeup poster of Empress Cao's character, Jiang Shuying, the cast still referenced the costumes in the "Axis of the Seated Portrait of empress Song Renzong (宋仁宗皇后坐像轴)" which is now in the National Palace Museum in Taipei, and perhaps due to the poor detail definition of the phoenix crown in the portrait, the phoenix crown was restored with reference to Liu E's phoenix crown in the similar era of Empress Zhenzong (真宗皇后). It's also worth noting that this empress costumes are of a higher class and therefore more elaborate, so let's start with a brief dissection of what Empress Cao is wearing. "Axis of the Seated Portrait of empress Song Renzong"   Dragon & Phoenix Flower Hairpin Crown In today's context, we are accustomed to referring to the Empress's ceremonial crown as a "phoenix crown" and sometimes the bride's jewelry as a "phoenix crown", but for a long time in ancient China, jewelry…