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Hanfu - Blog Posts
Halloween idea:
A Tang dynasty hanfu but make the scar-like makeup into realistic scars🩸
Spent two days hand sewing an accurate zhuyao only to give up trying to make it close properly and putting a zipper at the side
I got this fabric originally to make a 主腰, but the store gave me half a meter extra cause it had some imperfection, so now I have w hole meter and idk what to make out of it, help
It’s 100% silk, lightweight but quite stiff
So I’m planning on sewing a hanfu, but I don’t know which type of upper body undergarment should I chose. Could somebody with some hanfu wearing experience advise me on which one of those shirts are most comfortable to wear with large chest?
Does anyone know where can I get some pretty silk to make a Ming dynasty ma mian qun? I can only find polyester fabrics online with fitting pattern. Thank you in advance 💖💖💖
OC (he / him) in formalwear from a while back! 90% done with a mouse due to a wrist injury (his face was by hand).
OP is wearing a mamianqun (馬面裙) and using a dao (刀; one-edged blade)
I wanted to make this post since a couple of months ago. As proper summer is coming, Song and Tang style might make a come back in another couple of months.
This looks so beautiful, I want to see a comic book like this.
First Post!
I deleted my old tumblr because... man idk why it was covid-times and the prefrontal cortex was not in the room with us!! Anyways, I was reminded by my lovely friend @repecca that tumblr exists, and that some of my work has been going around on here, so I decided to post some of my work up officially! Starting off with my most notable (?) work to date, here's my LOTR: The Middle Kingdom Project. Now, it's been over a year since I posted this, and at the time I was... really searchingfor myself artistically, and I decided to go all in on something that I'd been ruminating on for a long time.
So, hello, again. I'm Leia. I do visual development/BG design, and I'm also a writer of things. I love fantasy and transformative work. It's nice to meet you.
Re: this ask (I accidentally deleted it but had taken a screenshot, thankfully ^^;;)
I don't know historically how they tied their skirts, but currently there are multiple ways people tie their skirts :D
Most Hanfu shops sell 2 types of skirts when it comes to the waist ties:
1) With a hole provided for the tie to slide through (this one seems more common nowadays) 2) Without the hole provided
Skirts with the waist-tie hole provided are a bit easier as it allows the tie to wrap around your waist and stay in place nicely:
(Video src: 一对小玉镯)
If you have a skirt without the hole provided, I find this method the easiest to make it look nice:
(Video srcs: 子月儿- )
As for ways to actually tie the tie, here area a few common methods (the last 3 aren't very common, but they add a bit of a flare). I'm lazy, so I usually just do a simple butterfly tie (nowhere near as neatly as this video shows), and I tend to slide it to the side so it's not clearly seen. Some people put the knot front-and-centre so it's part of the outfit, all up to you how to wear it :D
(Video src: 零青子 , ENG subs by me but it's easier to just watch the video xD)
Meilin of Zhong [Spirit Animals] Doodles
A doodle session of Meilin from Fall of the Beasts in really inconsistent art styles. (And an unnecessary story below about her clothes)
According to Google, Zhong (Meilin's country if you're unfamiliar) is based primarily on China and a few other Asian influences. While looking at the cover art on some of the Spirit Animal books, I've determined what Meilin is wearing kinda resembles a white cheongsam under a blue puffy parka looking thing.
(I'm not an expert on clothes, just a rabbit hole diver)
Looking up what dynasty would have their women wear cheongsams and blue parkas, Google says that women apparently wore cheongsams in the Ming Dynasty. So I said great, I'll base off her clothes off of the hanfu (Chinese historical clothing) from the Ming dynasty.
But then I got deeper into the rabbit hole and thought, "Wait... The Tang Dynasty looks pretty cool and pretty accurate to her outfit in the beginning"
You know the fancy ceremony outfit that Meilin wore for her Nectar ceremony? According to the book, she applied gold flakes, rouge, and white face paint among other things to her face. Tang Dynasty women wore gold flakes on their faces too (I looked up Ming Dynasty and their makeup seems totally different)
Tang Dynasty is also more accurate to what I imagine Zhong was at the time, open to the other three countries and flourishing in trade. It reflects in the fashion, as women's fashion became more diverse with so many different influences. I've also read articles that the fashion was seen as more aggressive, which suits Meilin.
However, I cannot ignore that the cover art Meilin's fashion was most likely made in the likeness of Ming Dynasty clothing. (As it turns out, the not-cheongsam is actually an ao)
And that's how I ended up deciding that (headcanon) Zhong's fashion is mainly inspired from the Tang Dynasty, especially the outfits popular in the imperial court, but there's Ming-esque athleisure I guess. (Conveniently ignoring that women wore pleated skirts and preferred pastel colors)
For her court outfit, I decided on a qixiong ruqun, which uniquely has the waistband above the chest paired with a scarf. As for her casual Hero of Erdas outfit I have her wear a double layered top called an ao (well, ao is the shirt in aoqun the word, so I'm assuming it's just called so), which is worn untucked above the waist over a skirt or in this case a pair of pants.
Obviously I took artistic liberty in literally everything, so please forgive me if I am inaccurate in anyway in the explanation. Just looked up a bunch of stuff and tried to piece everything together, so don't take this explanation too seriously.
Note: @ziseviolet is a good source for those who want to learn more; I simply browsed through their stuff this time, but I plan on reading more cuz it's super fascinating
アンドロメダ
♪silent surrender
Every time I am supposed to work on something serious serious I make a post :) Bufu (clothing with buzi) is definitely something fashionable for winter 2020/2021. I think there started to be more become popular since 2019 winter.
Art dump! These are some character designs for my wlw xianxia OCs :D
this is a closer look at the different layers (second one (Mei Yanfei's) is kinda different from the design i ended up using (see photos above), but oh well) female body base for these is made by @/Naoyin on devian art
aaaaand, a cute lil drawing of both of them :D
Hello, is there any evidence and/or depictions of Tamg Dynasty women actually wearing the hezi as an undergarment rather than an outer garment?
(If you don't know what "hezi/诃子" is, I'll put it under the Keep Reading.)
Hi!!
I checked on Baidu, I checked on Google, I checked on Bili, I checked in my Hanfu books, I checked on 小红书 (popular Chinese app), and from all the information I gathered the simple answer is:
No.
As of right now, there are no artefacts or paintings depicting women of the Tang Dynasty wearing the undergarment hezi (诃子) inside. I imagine one of the difficulties with undergarments is most depictions (paintings, figures, etc) wouldn't show people wearing it without outer wear, so we can only rely on tomb excavations to unearth actual garments, and right now none have been discovered.
But you never know what they might uncover in the future! I heard when they expanded Xi'an's airport last time they dug out 3,500 tombs, so they're always finding new things :D
Hezi (诃子) is a woman's undergarment that many people thought was worn during the Tang Dynasty. It was strapless and covered the bust, then gradually evolved to be worn with portions being viewable on the outside (the green strip across the bust would be the 'hezi'):
However, no actual artefacts have been uncovered to show anyone wearing hezi inside, so the official status of this garment is "under question (存疑)".
A lot of Hanfu stores sell hezi dresses (诃子裙) which is actually not a historically accurate garment. They connect the top and bottom portion so it's just one long dress rather than separated (and they added straps for convenience). It does tend to be a very "stereotypical" look for the Tang Dynasty for people who aren't familiar with historically accurate Hanfu:
汉服复兴之路 History of Hanfu Revival Movement
History of Hanfu:
“Hanfu" as a technical term refers to traditional clothing worn by the Han ethnic group in China （Han = Han ethnic group, Fu = clothing).
The last Dynasty of China, Qing, saw a ruling class of the Manchu ethnic group who had attacked the Ming Dynasty from the North and ultimately achieved victory. This resulted in a forceful change of attire from "Han" clothing to "Man" clothing and fashion:
This included men being forced to shave the front half of their heads, leaving a long braid in the back (those who refused were beheaded)(四爷，借用一下您的盛世美颜😂) :
Therefore, technically, "Hanfu" had not been worn in China since the end of the Ming Dynasty (1616 AD).
Following the establishment of the current People's Republic of China (1949 AD) the country busied itself with development and economic growth. By the early 2000's China had undergone 2 rounds of economic reform and saw an economy that was flourishing. This left people with more time and money to revisit the country's vast history and rich culture (it's difficult to think about culture or history when you're trying to put food on the table).
Hanfu revival movement:
On November 22, 2003, an electric engineer by the name of Wang Letian (王乐天) strode through the streets of Deng Zhou wearing a Quju robe . This was the first time someone wore Hanfu for a casual outing since almost 400 years ago. Although, looking back, the design wasn't historically accurate, and the clothing seemed ill-fitting, this robe had been hand-sewn by Wang Letian and his friends, all of whom had a passion for Hanfu.
At the time, people laughed when they saw him in the streets, it looked so odd and strange among the sweaters and jeans that had become the norm, but Wang Letian had started a snowball of Hanfu revival. The internet spread photos of him wearing Hanfu through the streets and by chance, a Singaporean reporter, Zhang Congxing (张从兴), came across the photos. He wrote an article in the newspaper Lianhe Morning Report (联合早报) which became the first news article recorded of the current movement to revive Hanfu.
Following that, interest in Hanfu grew. People (especially young people) dug through history books, visited museums, and broke out the sewing kits. Today, Hanfu can often be seen around sightseeing locations and in historic cities like Xi'an. Although most people still aren't wearing it out and about daily, it's not uncommon to see someone wearing a Mamian Skirt (from Ming dynasty) with a blouse heading to work.
There are still some who think it's odd and strange (including my dad 😑), but the revival in Hanfu indicates a confidence and pride many young people have in China's own history and culture, something that had been often neglected over the past 100 years due to continuous wars and political chaos.
As a kid, I loved period dramas and would drape a bed sheet around my shoulders pretending it's a cape. I'd admire the beautiful hair styles on TV, wondering how it was done. Never did I dream one day I'd be able to purchase my own Hanfu and have a suitcase of hair buns and accessories 🤣🤣
Hi! I really like your blog for the historical facts and the really nice statues and paintings of hanfus! I literally come back here whenever I'm designing outfits for my OCs and I just really really like learning about the ancient Chinese world. I really wanted to ask where these pictures and maybe the information on the timeline of the hanfu's come from. Any book or website is fine.
Also, how did most maids in waiting to a noble person dress?
Hi!!
Thank you for your kind message, I'm very happy that the information here can help you 😃❤️❤️ I love getting to share Hanfu with others who also appreciate its beauty!!
For maids in waiting, China differed a lot from the west. From what I understand (and if this is wrong please let me know), maids/ladies in waiting were often from nobility themselves, or had some family background, sent to assist the Queen or someone of a high rank. Historically in China, maids (either to the royal family, to nobility, or just to a rich family) are sold into this role so they themselves come from no/very low family background. Of course, in a complicated system like royal court there would be ranks in the servants as well, but they would not bring in a daughter of the nobility to serve the Queen or Princess.
As for their outfits, this would depend on the time period and who exactly they're serving. For example, maids in the court would dress differently than maids to a nobility. Here are some murals I found that depicts maids/servants. Overall their outfits and hairstyles are simpler than their masters:
For the photos in my posts I find them all over the internet 😃 Once I decide which garment(s) I'm going to be focusing on for the post, I Google/Baidu (Chinese search engine) search for images of the garment on unearthed artefacts. Then I go looking for where the artefact was found and where it's located now (some ppl don't label it, and then I have to play detective T__T). Sometimes I'll also search on Red Note (Chinese app/website) or Bilibili (Chinese youtube) for information as well.
For the timeline, I'm not sure which information you're referring to. The dynasties? I kind of just...know the dynasties from learning about Chinese history ^^;; You can also find it on Wikipedia, Wiki has a general overview of all the dynasties if you're interested 😃
As for books, the main book I'm using right now is this one:
中国历代风流服饰
It touches on some of the main garments in each dynasty and is a nice starting point for anyone just starting to learn about historical Hanfu. Unfortunately it's only available in Chinese.
I also got these two books a while ago that are also very helpful (but also only available in Chinese, there's a lack of any English books regarding Hanfu T__T).
I just want to say, before anything else, that I love your blog! It's so helpful to me when I write things. I'm also sorry for how long this ask is going to be. I normally ask anonymously but it won't let me put the photo in.
I really like this hanfu set but I don't know exactly what dynasty it's from, or even if it's actually historically accurate.
I also wanted to ask about the hanfu from Flourished Peony, and how accurate they are. Specifically that one pink round-collar hanfu Mudan wears when she's getting flowers from the mountain that I thought was a men's item, rather than a women's one.
Sorry about the long ask!
Going to answer both of these together since they're about the same show.
About the hanfu in the picture, this is a Ruqun (襦裙) set from the Weijin. The biggest giveaway is the stripe at the sleeves (it looks like 2 stripes but I have another pic of this outfit and you can see it's actually 1 decorative stripe with two bright borders). Also, if you look at this pic below with it untucked in the skirt, you can kind of see that there's a horizontal piece of fabric along the waist area.
If you take a look at my post about the Ruqun (here) you'll see an artefact that's very similar.
For Flourished peony, I'm only going to comment on the hanfu as I don't have enough knowledge about Tang dynasty hair or makeup right now to make any judgements. I'm also not looking at the patterns on the fabrics, I'm literally only looking at the styles of the clothing themselves.
Disclaimer, I haven't watched the show. These photos are from Google and Baidu promotional pics, and I did click through a few eps to take screencaps.
And if anyone has a screencap of, or can let me know which episode, the "pink round-collar hanfu Mudan wears" that's mentioned in the ask I'd really appreciate it (I tried looking for it but couldn't find it T__T)
Looking briefly through some of the posts regarding this show, it seems the production team put a lot of effort into recreating the Tang Dynasty aesthetic, from costumes to props (there are some people who have found props and matched them to museum pieces). For the most part, the clothing seems appropriate for the time period, the only nitpick I'll do is that it seems to mix together clothing styles from early Tang all the way to late Tang (but the show isn't set in a specific period of the Tang Dynasty, so they can kind of get away with that).
Most of the men seem to wear the round-collar robes that was most common during the Tang Dynasty (my post on it here).
This style of qixiong dress (over-bust dress) seems to be most common in this show, and definitely a staple for women's hanfu during the Tang Dynasty.
If you look at the width of her sleeve here, it doesn't appear very wide. Sleeve width became wider and wider during the Tang Dynasty, so looking at these sleeves it seems more early-going-into-Gold-era Tang (my post on Gold-era Tang hanfu here).
This style looks more early-Tang with the very form-fitted sleeve and the non-qixiong skirt. I can't see clearly the pattern of her dress here, but early Tang skirts often had alternating coloured blocks on their skirts (called jianqun/间裙子)(my post on early Tang here and here).
I can't tell clearly if this dress is a qixiong dress, or a hezi dress. Hezi dresses so far are not backed by any artefacts, there are rumours of its existence but nothing has been unearthed to verify it (someone asked me about this, I posted on it here).
Looking at the long outer robe with the wide sleeve, even if this was a qixiong dress, this would be late Tang, edging into the Five Dynasties post-Tang (my post on this here).
In the first pic, the two maids are wearing outfits that are very typical in early Tang. The collars, the little vest/half-sleeve of the shirt, etc.
I'll nitpick that historically, Chinese capes did not have hoods attached. They came separately.
You can see in this pic (from the 1987 Dream of the Red Chambers), the woman is wearing her cape, the man is holding the hood for her.
My personal theory is because of the various hair styles women have, and the various hats/guan (head pieces) men wear, a separate hood offered more flexibility. Like in this pic from Romance of the Three Kingdoms (1994), he's wearing a very tall guan so trying to fit it under a hood that's attached to the cape would be difficult. But this is all just my guesses, don't quote me xD
This maid is wearing a round-collared robe usually associated with men, but actually during the Tang Dynasty it wasn't uncommon for women to wear this style of robe as well.
This man has half the robe on, the other half off his shoulder, displaying the half-sleeve underneath. This was a common way men wore their robes in casual situations (it looks like he's hunting) (my post on this here).
I took this screenshot because you can see the difference in lengths between these two men's robes. One is calf-length, one is ankle-length. Men's robes also got longer as time went on during the Tang Dynasty. It's possible this servant is wearing a shorter robe to make walking easier, but going by the length of the man in red, this should be at least late-Tang Dynasty (post mentioning robe length here).
This outfit's sleeve is very wide, indicating later in the Tang Dynasty. I think people believe form-fitted sleeves were more for younger girls, servants, or women of lower class who had to work and large, wide sleeves were for higher-level women or older women who sat around all day. In actuality, sleeve width was an indication of time period during the Tang Dynasty (for both men and women).
This look is straight out of a Dunhuang Buddhist donor mural. They painted these to commemorate people who were devoted to Buddhism and/or gave a lot of offerings, you can find these murals at the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang City today (my post on this here).
I know I said I wouldn't discuss hair but just this one, since it's such an iconic look for the Tang Dynasty. This hairstyle is a clear replica of the Ladies with Flower in their Hair painting (簪花仕女图), but they've changed the clothing. This painting was originally believed to be from the Golden-era or Mid-Tang, but in recent years historians believe it's more likely to be late-Tang or Five Dynasties (possibly even Song Dynasty) painted. Even in China a lot of people still associate it with the Tang Dynasty.
So overall, the show's production team clearly did research to replicate Tang Dynasty clothing. For the most part, they did a good job, no cross-dynasty clothing being tossed around. There's a bit of mish-mash for which period of the Tang Dynasty the clothing's from, but that's not a huge issue. Given some of the crazy costumes that's come out of period dramas in recent years, big applause to the production team to the costuming department.
(Re: This post)
My lacquer allergy is getting better, the blisters have calmed down but some of the popped ones have left me with areas where the skin has peeled. They've scabbed over now, and I think it's in the heeling phase so once the new skin grows I'll be OK (this time, lol).
Unfortunately, since it's all around my wrists the scabs are making it difficult for my to rotate my wrists in any direction. I can barely hold chopsticks, use my toothbrush, pull my clothes on, etc. Luckily I can still practice playing the Guqin so my teacher is having me take it easy on the making side, and focusing more on the playing.
In the meantime, a few Hanfu books I ordered arrived, so I'll post some recommendations until I can hold my stylus pen again :D
Hanfu book recommendation:
"华夏衣橱" Huaxia Wardrobe (Huaxia means China)
This book covers the Tang, Song, and Ming dynasties, it also includes a chapter on Peking Opera costumes and a section on clothing for different holidays/seasonal days like winter solstice.
It includes clothing for casual occasions, special events, for men and women. Each outfit is drawn out, with each garment name labelled. It also details information on hairstyles, hair accessories, makeup, traditional colour palettes, fabric patterns, etc.
This book isn't text-heavy, relying mostly on pictures to relay information. The layout is fairly simple, so if you're just starting to dig into Hanfu history I think this is a good book to use.
An extra little perk is the side of the book is printed with 2 famous historical paintings, a very lovely touch :)
