Chinese Clothing

What Chinese clothing is Cultural significance Ancient Clothing Traditional Clothing

Contents

What Chinese clothing is

Chinese clothing was one of the most unique things in china’s history. The most common

garment in Chinese clothing was the tunic which came in many different varieties. All of the

Chinese clothing traditions had to be followed because if not you would be considered a barbarian or even a foreigner. (Which was

considered a very bad thing because they were an isolated country.)

Chinese clothing got changed a lot during time. Almost every time a new emperor came in a new

trend would be introduced.

Ancient Clothing

The tunic trend Social distinction by clothing The first sign of cotton

The tunic trend

Traditionally women in China would be seen in a long tunic that goes to the

ground. They would tie it with a belt or a sash that if possible would have jade on it. Men would also have tunics but their would stop at their knees and underneath their tunics they would wear pants. Both men and women

would wear padded jackets over their tunics during the season of winter.

Social distinction by clothingThe kind of fabric people used would tell other people of their social status. Most of China’s population was not rich back

then. All of these people would wear clothes made out of hemp or ramie.

These were two kinds of fabric in which were very affordable but they still did what they were supposed to. These

people would have to make their clothes for them selves as they could not afford

for it to be done for them. As for the richer people they would wear silk tunics

& they would not have had to do the hard labour of making their clothes for other people would do it for them. Then

in the time of the Sui Dynasty in the 500s AD, Emperor Wendi decided that to wear all the poor people had wear blue or black & the only people who could wear colours were the rich people.

Chinese Silk

Silk was first discovered first in China in the 30th century BC in the time that

the Yellow Emperor came in power. Silk is one of the best materials for

clothing, but it was a very expensive material and only very fortunate

people who could afford this material were able to wear it.

The introduction of cotton

During the mong era the Chinese introduced cotton as a material to make clothes. The Mongols use of cotton

spread around china and before long all of the mulberry trees used to make the silk had been

destroyed. The introduction of cotton helped eliminate social distinction that had arisen due to different

clothing materials that different classes used. Cotton was much much better than hemp or ramie it was a soft material and it also looked decent, though it was a very good material it was still very cheap. Although cotton was supposed to be a summer material local

people would pad their cotton clothes for winter

Traditional clothing: most popular dresses

Pien Fu Sheni Chang Pao

Pien Fu

The Pien Fu was the most popular Chinese dress by far. It was a two

piece outfit that contains a tunic that goes down to your knees. Underneath the tunic they wore a skirt that goes down to their ankles. But the Pien Fu would not be the Pien Fu with out the

Pien, the Pien is a cylinder shaped hat. This is a very unique costume that was

kept for special ceremonies.

Sheni

The Sheni is a modification of the Pien Fu. It consists of exactly the same

things as the Pien Fu but the unique thing about this dress is that both

pieces are stitched together. So it look like on very long suit-dress.

Chang Pao

This was perhaps the simplest of all traditional Chinese clothing. In its

essence the Chang Pao dress was a fusion of the Sheni and the Pien Fu. It was a one piece suit that started from

the height of the shoulders and extended down to the wearer’s ankles.