Wearing incense sachets in daily life, or burning the incense burner when reading or sipping tea, the pursuit of fragrance by the ancient Chinese surpassed even modern times. The combination of form and spirit is the ancients revered spiritual states. Clothing provided the form of the real state, while the flavor implied in the air gave the spirit part. The documentary "The Flavor of History" features a unique perspective that brings hanfu and flavor together again.   Tang Dynasty Ruilongnao (瑞龙脑) is produced in the country of Brahma (now Brunei). In addition to growing in hot places, it needs to be smoked to release its aroma. But its flavor is as cool and pure as its appearance, like a contradictory combination of noisy and silent, entwined and moving. In the clothing system of the Tang Dynasty, color was an important clue to distinguish the superior and inferior. According to the Book of Tang - Records of Yufu, the emperor's regular clothes are Chi Huang (赤黄, a color between yellow and red, #F8CE00) robes, Fu Tou (幞头), nine rings belt, and Liu He boots (六合靴)". At the time of Emperor Gaozu of the Tang Dynasty, it was officially stipulated that Chi Huang…

So maybe you’ve been interested in hanfu for a while, and you’ve vaguely started to pick out the differences between Ming Dynasty aoqun and Tang Dynasty heziqun, but you still have no clue what the order of the time periods are or even what they were characterized by. Upon a quick sift through Wikipedia, there’s just wayyyyy too much information to process, and you don’t even know what information to look for—what matters to your understanding of hanfu culture. Fear not! Here’s a compendium of what you need to know about the historical context of hanfu.   The Structure of Ancient Chinese History There’s a phenomenon in Chinese history that we call the Dynastic Cycle. Ancient China was ruled over by many different time periods called Dynasties, each with a family of rulers, and most of these follow the same general scheme: the central ruling power is established, the population goes up and the country flourishes, corruption starts affecting the political scheme, people revolt, and the country either dissolves into several warring states or gets conquered by another group of people. Then one state emerges victorious over the other ones or the invaders, the next dynasty is established, and the…

Vocab “Step ban” or “walking ban” - Jin Bu (禁步, jìn bù) - an accessory often matches with hanfu. It is an accessory that is threaded together with jade stones and hung over a hanfu dress.  Jade pendant - Yu Pei (玉佩, yù pèi) - also an accessory made of silk threads, beads, and jade stone that hung at the waist. But yùpèi are much simpler than Jin Bu, oftentimes it is just a jade with one or two beads tied together with thread. Oftentimes there will be no silk or bead tassels at the bottom like Jin Bu.   Materials Jin Bu are usually made up of colored silk threads, jade beads, and jade pendants combined together. There may or not have tassels made up of silk thread at the end of the accessory. If not, the tassels may also be made up of threaded beads.  Jin Bu in the past were made up of precious stones, and since they are threaded, they will clash together when walking making jade clash. If this is heard now people might not think much about it, but the etiquette and customs were stricter in ancient times, especially on feminine etiquette and how…

The thriving hanfu and its derivative culture are coming back into the public view in a creative, distinct, and diverse way, lending its light and color back to the energetic youth. In this article, follow "THE GREAT SHOKUNIN" and meet Hanfu makeup blogger @Xiao Zhuang (小庄).   Creative Ancient Hanfu Makeup The account @Xiao Zhuang is actually run jointly by two Hanfu enthusiasts, with makeup, appearances, editing and post generally handled by Qing Qing (晴晴), while photography and filming are done by Xiao Zhuang. They have collaborated on over 200 videos, the most popular of which is the series "The Beauty of China's Millennium", which has received nearly 10 million views. In this series, Qing Qing restored the history of the evolution of makeup, hairstyles, accessories, and hanfu clothing of the Tang, Song, and Ming dynasties. Before this, we mostly got a glimpse of ancient women's grooming, makeup and lifestyle from ancient TV dramas, but the style was mostly uniform, lacking in creativity and sophistication. On the contrary, in Xiao Zhuang's video, you can fully experience the changes of women's makeup and costume in different dynasties. Taking the Tang Dynasty makeup of this series as an example, the complete reproduction…

Summary Modern Hanfu, also known as New style Hanfu, originates from the traditional classical dress style of the Han ethnic group and retains its typical formal characteristics, but innovates by combining it with the diverse wearing situations and fashion aesthetics of the current public. The core features of modern hanfu are: innovation, openness, and contextual diversity. While retaining the basic forms and aesthetics of ancient hanfu, modern hanfu has gained more and more popular among consumers in recent years by innovating its design to fit modern people's dressing habits and aesthetics, making it an everyday look. With the return of traditional Chinese culture to the mainstream, there are more and more hanfu with new styles. From both the cultural and productive point of view, the future of the new style hanfu industry is very promising.   The basic situation of the modern Hanfu industry Modernization and daily use will drive the industry further The market size of the modern hanfu industry in 2021 is 1.4 billion dollars, up 6.4% year-on-year, slowing down relative to the past five years. This is partly because of the decline in the ability and willingness of consumers to purchase due to factors such as the…

Hey everyone, long time no see! It's been a while and I promise I'm still working on the Song Dynasty sections of Hanfu Unearthed—in the meantime, enjoy this not-so-short cheat sheet to all of the most commonly used fibers and weaves in hanfu, whether historically or in the industry today. Fibers Fibers are the material from which threads are spun to be made into fabric. These include synthetic fibers made in labs or factories by humans, as well as animal fibers that are grown as fur or silk by animals, or plant-based fibers that we harvest from various fibrous plants. Tencel Rising in popularity, especially last summer, tencel is a kind of semi-synthetic fiber made from cellulose, also called lyocell, originally made to imitate silk. Made by dissolving cellulose into pulp and using dry jet-et spinning to reconstitute the fibers, it’s a clean process that creates a kind of synthetic fiber using natural materials: easier to dye than cotton, more breathable than polyester, moisture-wicking, and softer than linen. The one downside of tencel is that it’s easily wrinkled, but its smooth draping quality and breathability make it a first choice for hanfu manufacturers today. Other rayons are also used, but…

  Vocabulary Velvet Flower - 绒花 (rónghuā) - a realistically made flower made artificially from silk threads and copper wire. Palace Flower - 宫花 (gōng huā) - another way to call ronghua with the rise in popularities of ronghua to females in the palace. Untwisted Silks - 无捻蚕丝 (wú niǎn cánsī) - when it comes to silk threads, depending on the type and material of the threads, one single thread can be made up of thinner threads twisted together. Untwisted silk thread means there are no smaller twisted threads. You can directly skip to the brushing steps in ronghua making process. Hunan Embroidery Thread - 湘绣线 (xiāngxiù xiàn) - another type of thread used in ronghua making. Suzhou Embroidery Thread - 苏绣线 (sūxiù xiàn) - another type of thread used in ronghua making.   History 绒花, rónghuā, an artificial handcraft head accessories made from materials such as silks and coppers. It existed since the Qin Dynasty. There are many known “brands” of ronghuas, such as Nanjing Ronghua. In the Tang era, Wu Zetian listed Nanjing Ronghua as a royal tribute to the Yangzhou area becoming a luxury only princes and princesses can use. Eventually, Nanjing Ronghua became something that represents Nanjing but also…

Hey everyone, thanks for waiting! Our next topic is gonna be pretty exciting for most of you who love the classic ruqun aesthetic: we’re going to be going over the historical relics for the Wei/Jin and Northern/Southern Dynasty! Since there are so few of these relics, this article is going to focus on the Wei/Jin Dynasty as a whole, including restored relics, art references, and misconceptions about the Wei/Jin Dynasty. It might be a bit of a shorter article due to little material, but I know that people are really interested in this period of time, so let’s get to it! 魏晉南北朝/魏晋南北朝/wei4 jin4 nan2 bei3 chao2/Wei/Jin and Northern/Southern Dynasties refers to the period of time between 220 and 589CE. Also known as 六朝/六朝/liu4 chao2/Six Dynasties, this set of dynasties are compressed into one general block of time by historians because of the rapid exchange of power. Following the Eastern Han dynasty, the Three Kingdoms period had the Cao Wei kingdom at its forefront, with the Western Jin Dynasty coming right after ruled by Sima Yan. This was followed by the Northern Dynasties, when the Northern Wei, Western Wei, Easter Wei, and Northern Zhou and Qi Dynasties followed each other rapidly,…

China has a long history of five thousand years. The history written in this vast land by Chinese people flourishing, eating, clothing, housing, and transportation is every bit as colorful and splendid. National dress is the most intuitive expression of national style. For example, when we talk about Japan, people can quickly think of kimonos. What would come to mind if we were to find a synonym for Chinese costumes? In the heart of craftsman Zhong Yi, the word is definitely: Hanfu. In May 2017, Lin Chi-ling in hanfu appears in a large advertisement in Times Square, New York, wearing a simple and elegant bean green hanfu dress. The soft and gentle, exquisite craftsmanship is hidden in the details, showing the restrained and dignified beauty of oriental women. The Chinese culture was promoted intuitively and fully, stunning the world. As a sharer of the second season of the program "THE GREAT SHOKUNIN", Lin had this to say in the program. "China, with its greatness of manners, is called Xia, and the beauty of its costumes is called Hua. Costumes and manners are traditionally the most external cultural heritage of a nation. Hanfu, is not the old clothes that stay in…

Fabric and craftsmanship are both very important aspects of hanfu making. In this article, several common hanfu fabric processes will be briefly introduced to you.   Zhuang Hua Zhuang Hua (妆花) is the most complex variety of weaving technology in Nanjing cloud brocade, and also the representative jacquard silk weaving variety with the most local characteristics of Nanjing, was popular in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Traditional Zhuang Hua is made of artificial weaving, and the Zhuang Hua on nowadays are all "imitation Zhuang Hua", which are made by machines. The Zhuang Hua fabric is characterized by many colors and is rich in color changes. In terms of the weaving method, the pattern on the fabric is partially painted by using a colored fleece weft bobbin. The color matching is very free and there are no restrictions. The main pattern of the design is usually expressed in two or three levels of color, and some patterns are expressed in simple color (such as pedicels, leaves, and buds). A piece of Zhuang Hua fabric with patterns and colors can be matched in more than a dozen or even 20 or 30 colors. Although there are many colors of Zhuang Hua, but…

I made my first real Hanfu based on patterns from this website. First outing at the beach, with dragons and all. Here is an article with much details on my sewing journey.

The popularity of hanfu has also led to new hanfu-related professions such as "Hanfu Makeup Artist (Zhuang Niang, 妆娘)" and "Hanfu Hairpin Maker (Zan Niang, 簪娘)".   Hanfu Makeup Artist Light and elegant hanfu, shiny hairpin, walked into the hanfu experience hall, and the classical atmosphere came to face. The scissors lane at the Laomen East Pedestrian Street in Nanjing can be said to be "Hanfu Street", and nearly 20 Hanfu stores are gathered. Every holiday, lots of beautiful ladies in hanfu can be met here. Xiao Yang is a hanfu makeup artist in hanfu experience hall. She has just entered the industry for half a year, but has long felt young people’s love for hanfu. "I’m very busy every day during the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, and I need to styling for more than ten ladies." Before entering the industry, Xiao Yang was a teacher. After working for several years, she wanted to change careers, so she studied makeup. "Because hanfu has been relatively popular in recent years, I want to specialize in hanfu makeup, and occasionally make makeup for the bride. I think the makeup of hanfu is lighter and more elegant than that of daily makeup. The eyebrows…

A brief history of waist fan (yaoshan) and steps to DIY one for anyone interested. Vocab Tuan Shan: moon-shaped fan, 团扇, tuánshàn; Zhe Shan: folding fan, 折扇, zhéshàn; Yao Shan: waist fan, 腰扇, yāo shàn; Ping Feng: screen, 屏风, píngfēng.   Introduction When it comes to hanfu, one accessory that it is paired with is a fan. Well-known types of fans are moon-shaped fan and folding fan. But there is another type of fan known as Yao Shan, which translates as "waist fan." The reason why it is called a waist fan is that it can easily be secured at the waist when not used. When the fan is needed, you can just slip it out of the belt and open it up by twisting. It's unlike others where you will either have to constantly hold or unable to close it to take up less space. Waist fans contain characteristics from both moon-shaped fans and folding fans. It took the common round surface of a moon-shaped fan and the ability to close and open when needed from a folding fan. But the round shape is just a common shape everyone goes by. Moon-shaped fans have expanded from simply using a circle…

So you’ve built up a little bit of a collection, and you’re having a bit of a dilemma: With all this fabric hanging out in your closet, you’ve begun to run out of space. You don’t even know how to store these properly—and yet you want to buy more hanfu! Never fear; here’s a tried and true system that I and many other hanfu enthusiasts use to store our hanfu in a way that doesn’t harm the fabric and allows you to use your space most efficiently.   Skirts The easiest, most intuitive way to store your skirts is always going to hanging them. Look for these kinds of hangers that have strong clips on them, and try to choose ones that have larger, flatter clips so that they don’t leave marks on your skirt. To hang the skirt, fold the head of the skirt in thirds, then pull the ribbon out from the innermost side of the skirt. Clip the skirt head with the clips on the hanger, making sure that all three layers are clipped in, then pick up the ribbons together and loop them around the hanger’s hook so they don’t trail on the ground and get…

Wearing armor, riding a horse, holding a traditional weapon, fighting on the battlefield. Such a scene may have appeared in the dreams of many people when they were young. But there is a person who turned the traditional Chinese armor in the dream into reality, he is the first person to restore the ancient armor of the Tang and Song dynasties, Wen Chenhua (温陈华). He has highly restoration the armor of the Song dynasty, which has been lost in China for 700 years, after 6 years. He founded the Lian Kai Tang (炼铠堂), and with his own strength, he promoted the obscure armor restoration craft, and let Chinese armor on the world-class combat stage.   #01 The first person in traditional Chinese armor restoration There are only about 1000 armor restorers in China, 90% of them are Wen Chenhua's students, and for 40 years, he has been restoring Jiazhou (甲胄, traditional Chinese armor) to the extreme. On Wen Chenhua's social platforms profile, there is only a simple sentence "Top Chinese Jiazhou maker" as an introduction. However, he has shared a lot of armor design drawings and finished armor photos, all revealing his deep love for Jiazhou. Traditional armor restoration and…

A detailed descriptions of hanfu skirt's hem. There are different hem lengths to a hanfu skirt, you can follow these descriptions to choose the one suitable for you.

As one of the main composition elements of hanfu tops and robes, sleeves can have a lot of variation. They mostly fall into a couple categories that we have recovered historical artifacts from, though a lot of manufacturers end up with some variation in their patterns. Today we’ll go over a whole ten sleeve types, a bit of historical context, and some of the variations they can go through. Before we get into that, though, let’s go over a little basic information that applies to (almost) all hanfu sleeves. One of the defining characteristics of the hanfu is the 接袖/接袖/jie1 xiu4/sleeve connection. What this means is that the sleeve is not connected to the body of the top or robe at the shoulder, but at a point partway down the upper arm, with the body of the clothing and part of the arm being made up of one piece of fabric, and the rest of the sleeve of another. These are stitched together to create the whole sleeve. The rest of the sleeve is also made of one piece of fabric both front and back, folded over the top and stitched together at the bottom. Some exceptions to this are…

The construction of the body of most hanfu tops and robes is what usually decides what ’type’ of hanfu it is. We’ll go over a few common types of hanfu and what features they have. There are, however, a few rules that pretty much all hanfu tends to follow: First, there’s always a seam down the middle of the back, meaning that the piece of clothing is made up of one piece of fabric on the left and one on the right, stitched together in the center. There’s also never a seam at the shoulder like we have in modern clothing—instead of the front and back being two different pieces of fabric, the front and back are made up of the same piece, just folded over the shoulder. Another thing to note is that while we often refer to tops and robes in hanfu as the two main categories, that isn’t how hanfu is really categorized, just a way for us to talk about the shape of things in English. Instead, we have the 長/长/chang2/long versions and 短/短/duan3/short versions of clothing, which can be applied to most categories of clothing that we separate by construction—the only difference is length. Short…

First installment of the Hanfu in Components series is up! As a reminder, if you haven’t already, check out the introductory article to best find out how to use this guide, otherwise some things might not make sense to you. If you’ve done that already, charge on forward! To kick off the series, this is a brief article explaining how exactly we’re going to break down hanfu into its basic components. We’re still in the introductory stages here, but bear with me and we’ll get to the fun stuff soon.   WHAT MAKES HANFU, HANFU? What defines 漢服/汉服/han4 fu2/hanfu? What sets it apart from everyone else? How do we know when something is truly hanfu, as opposed to hanfu-inspired? These questions can be kind of scary when you first look at them, scared of making a mistake—don’t worry, it’s actually pretty simple! First, we should understand that hanfu isn’t just something that we derived off of paintings and imperial dramas. Every type of hanfu that we have today was recovered as a rotting piece of cloth that we dug up from the ground, studied by historians and made into clothing patterns (‘pattern’ refers the shape of the fabric pieces and…

Hey again everyone! I’m super excited to be introducing a new series that I’m going to be writing over the next few… days? weeks? However much time it takes me to get all of this out! This collection of articles, Hanfu in Components, is a perfect introduction for those of you semi-newbies who feel a little overwhelmed by all the different kinds of hanfu and want to learn more beyond the very basics but can’t find the best place to start. We’ll break down hanfu into its basic components, talk about what parts make up a piece of han clothing, and briefly explore the shape, history, and pattern of each part so that you can get familiar with the way that hanfu is pieced together, no deep historical background needed.   WHAT THIS SERIES WILL COVER Introduction (this article) Hanfu Construction Tops & Robes (Body) Sleeves Collars Putting it All Together   WHAT THIS SERIES WON’T COVER (may change in the future): Skirts (but you can find my article about Types of Hanfu Skirts here! Also may change in the future) Pants (may change in the future) Hanfu underlayers (but you can find my article about Basics of Hanfu Underlayers here!…