For this project I did research into the styles of clothing that would have been worn in Ancient China, and what I came up with is called Hanfu, 汉服。 This traditional style of clothing is vastly different then the styles we have come to believe as traditionally Chinese. The tight skirts and short silk coats we have become accustomed to are the Manchurian styles of dress which people wererequired by law to wear when the Qing Dynasty ousted the previous dynasty established by Genghis Khan (Archive for Chinese Clothing). While the Manchurian style of dress consists of tight fitting clothing the traditional Han style consists of many different layers of cloth, often made of varying types of silk. The clothes are similar to a kimono in style, however, as with many aspects of Chinese culture the dress is quite extravagent, and the fabric moves more than that of a Kimono, especially in traditional pieces. When doing image researches for Hanfu many of the watercolor paintings depicted the silk worn by nobles as extremely delicate - in a way that silk today is not - through my research I discovered that the Bombyx Mori, the worm used for creation of silk today, is larger than its ancestor the Bombyx Mandarina. The Mandarina, for this reason, created a finer filament which could be spun into silks of unequaled delicacy (Archive for Chinese Clothing). |
 Above: Watercolor depicting the delicacy of Chinese Silk. |
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I also delved into the style of headpiece worn by the different factions in Han Society. In the final renderings you will see no the next page, I have chosen to interpret two different styles of headpiece worn by nobles. Upon my version of the Emperor, is the Mian Guan 免冠。 This extravagant hat had twelve strands of jade beads hanging down in the front and the back. Each strand of Jade would have twelve pieces of Jade called Liu. Twelve being the number of the heavens, this number of Liu would have only been on the Emperor's Mian Guan. The royal princes would have had nine strands of jade and other nobles would have had seven or eight strands hanging from their Mian Guan. The women's headdresses had immense variation, and ranged from the relatively simple to the exorbitant. These headdresses called Ji, 霁， often consisted of multiple hairpins, and combs. For example, the formal Ji of the Empress would have included twelve dragon pins, symbolizing the emperor, nine pheonix pins, for the empress, and than varying pins with dangling jade beads (Zhan). Some of the best examples of plausible Empress Ji are from Zhang Yimou's film Curse of the Golden Flower, starring Gong Li. Since one of the large parts of my research is to gather research images, which I have been showcasing throughout the website, to help give you a better idea of the style of clothing worn by the traditional Han.
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