Ancient Chinese Culture » clothing

Dragon Robe

sharon — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 03:33:58 +0000

In Chinese culture, the dragon represents power. Therefore, it was associated with Chinese emperors as early as the Zhou Dynasty (11th century-256 B.C.) when emperors began to wear robes with the figures of dragon. However, they were named as dragon robes until the Qing Dynasty.

The figure nine and five was associated with the dignity of throne in ancient China. Therefore, a dragon robe is embroidered with nine yellow dragons, on the front, the back, before or behind knees, shoulders and lining of the chest. The upper class were permitted to wear the robes decorated with three, four or five clawed dragons according to their ranks.

The end of the Qing Dynasty brings an end to the dragon robes. Fortunately, we still can appreciate them in some museums now, having a glimpse of the supreme dressmaking technique in ancient China.

the Lightest Silk Clothing

sharon — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 07:49:42 +0000

With 1.60 meters long, long-sleeved and as light as 48 grams, the plain voile Buddhist garment which was unearthed from Tomb No.1 of Mawangdui Han Dynasty Tomb is the lightest silk clothing in chinese history.

It is light as the mist and as fine as gossamer. Since it was so light, the upper class of that time always wore more than 10 pieces of this kind of clothing for formal occasions.

And why the cloth is so light? The research found out that “silk worms from that era were much smaller than today’s variety, thus they could spin silk that was much thinner and lighter than today’s silk worms.” (Thanks for Vi’s comment!) Scients even took 13 years to do the research. They fed the certain silk worms which were close to those in the ancient times and then used the silk they spun to make a duplicate.

Ancient Bra: Dudou

sharon — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 06:45:00 +0000

DuDou, was an ancient Chinese bodice used primarily as an undergarment that was once worn by Chinese women and kids across all classes.

It was usually made into a diamond shape and was tied across the back, leaving the arms and back uncovered.

Most Dudous were made of silk yarn or crepe edged with brocade. Young women would use bright-colored brocade of red, pink or green. They would also embroider flowers, butterflies or mandarin ducks which symbolized love on the front of dudous.