Music started at Xishi Square before the light had gone soft over the flower beds. On September 26, the Sichuan provincial round of the Liyi Huaxia (“Ritual Garments of China”) Hanfu Model Contest took over Huaxiang Nongju in Sansheng Township, Jinjiang District, Chengdu, and with it opened the Hongsha Xishi autumn culture program, a holiday series the scenic area has been assembling since the spring.
Sansheng Township is one of Chengdu’s best-known flower-growing areas, and the setting shaped the staging. Contestants worked a platform raised between planted beds, then filed out into the lanes of the village in procession, hems sweeping the paving while visitors fell in behind them.
Three Forms on One Stage
Contestants came out in Quju (曲裾), chest-tied Qixiong Ruqun, and Ming-style sets. The Quju is the oldest of the three, a wrapped robe that closes by laying one panel over the next and tying the whole length at the waist; it reads as severe from the front and only shows its construction when the wearer turns. The Qixiong cut sits high on the chest and stretches the body line. Ming-style dress closes with a standing collar band and hangs over a pleated skirt.
Makeup stayed deliberately plain and the accessories were small: a hairpin, a few strands of beads, nothing more. Bearing counted for as much as dress. Contestants held their arms wide and walked slowly, the posture these garments impose on anyone who wears them.
Residents and visitors lined the edges of the square to watch and take photographs, and applause ran through the crowd after each pass. Many arrived with children and treated the site as a route rather than a single show, moving between the stage and the lanes through the afternoon.
A Market Beyond the Runway
Past the stage, a guofeng market ran the length of the site with heritage handicrafts, Guochao merchandise, antique-style accessories, and regional food. Stalls were arranged so that visitors could handle finished pieces, try the folk crafts on offer, and buy, which stretched the contest into a full day out rather than a one-hour program.
A manager with the scenic area said the contest was the newest phase of the Hongsha Xishi cultural-tourism brand and the opening highlight of the holiday schedule. The area, the manager added, has organized its business around a four-stage idea of a relationship, meeting, courtship, marriage, and companionship. Hanfu events, flower fields and wedding tourism all feed into that frame, the manager noted, in a bid to give the autumn season a character other parts of the city do not have.
What Comes After the Holiday
The series continues with a large-scale matchmaking event on September 27, a guofeng experience day on October 1, and a wedding-industry talent show on October 2. All three sit inside the same stretch of the calendar that pairs Mid-Autumn Festival with National Day, and the pitch to local families is straightforward: a national holiday’s worth of programming without leaving the city.
Liyi Huaxia runs provincial rounds before a national final, and Chengdu carried the Sichuan leg this year. Its organisers put the provincial field on the same square that will host the October 1 and October 2 events, so the season’s opening and its closing weekend share a stage.
