So the Mamianqun, or 馬面裙, or horse-faced skirt, has been blowing up lately especially because of the Dior controversy—here's an in-depth dive into the history, construction, and features of the famous horse-face skirt.   A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE MAMIANQUN The mamianqun or horse-faced skirt is a skirt that first originated somewhere close to the Song dynasty worn by high-class courtesans (who were like celebrities and fashion icons tbh) in the form of colorful pleated silk. It’s named this way because of its resemblance to the mamian fortress, which has stairs on either side (like the pleats) and a door in the front and back (like the skirt doors). The ‘doors’ sides of the fortress were known as the *horse faces* or mamian/馬面 because these were the faces of the fortress where the horses would pass through. It became extremely popular in the following Ming dynasty and stayed popular through the Qing dynasty through Manchurian rule—it’s been around for a long, long time! Mamianqun are more convenient for movement and offer a regal, classy aesthetic as well as a very recognizable and unique silhouette. Even Princess Diana wore one once! BASIC CONSTRUCTION OF A MAMIANQUN The Skirt Doors From the…

The mythical creature from "Classic of Mountains and Seas" are brought to life again! These ancient records from 2,000 years ago come to vivid reality in this girl's restoration. Xiang Liu (相柳): 《山海经·海外北经》：“共工之臣曰相柳氏，九首，以食于九山。相柳之所抵，厥为泽溪。……相柳者，九首人面，蛇身而青……” Shan Hai Jing - Hai Wai Bei Jing: "Gong Gong had a minister named Xiang Liu, who had nine heads and fetched food on each of the nine mountains. Everywhere the Xiang Liu touched, it would turn into swamps and streams. ....... Xiang Liu, with nine heads, had a human-like face, a snake-like body, and a greenish body." Ling Yu (陵鱼): 《山海经·海内北经》：“陵鱼人面、手足、鱼身，在海中。” Shan Hai Jing - Hai Nei Bei Jing: "There is a kind of Ling Yu, with a human-like face, arms and legs, and a fish-like body, living in the sea." Qiong Qi (穷奇) & Luo Yu (蠃鱼): 《山海经·西山经》：“又西二百六十里，曰邽山，其上有兽焉，其状如牛，猬毛，名曰穷奇，音如獆狗，是食人。濛水出焉，南流注于洋水，其中多黄贝、蠃鱼，鱼身而鸟翼，音如鸳鸯，见则其邑大水。” Shan Hai Jing - Xi Shan Jing: "Two hundred and sixty miles to the west, there is a mountain called Gui Shan. A beast on the mountain, shaped like a cow, with hair like the thorns of a hedgehog, is called the Qiong Qi, which makes a sound like a barking dog and can eat humans. Meng River originates from this mountain and flows southward into the…

From the details of dramatized family daily life to the emotional struggle of characters growing up and the emotions of family and country, Love Like the Galaxy contains many highlights worth watching. The ancient legendary cdrama Love Like the Galaxy was launched on July 5, adapted from the novel work "Xing Han Can Lan, Xing Shen Zhi Zai (星汉灿烂, 幸甚至哉)" by novel author Guan Xin Ze Luan, starring Wu Lei, Zhao Lusi, Guo Tao and Zeng Li in the lead roles. In addition to being broadcast exclusively on Tencent Video, the series is also available on Viu, YouTube, Viki, and iTalk, which cover multiple regions. In the future, the series will also be broadcast on AsiaN in Korea and mainstream TV in Japan. Love Like the Galaxy portrays the ancient family group, with a huge and complicated family construction that holds up the vast and long story. The drama tells the story of Ling Bu Yi, who is burdened with a blood feud, and Cheng Shao Shang, who has lacked love since childhood, growing up together through life and death together. The drama in the structure of the narrative, to grow the main male and female to drive the audience…

The air-conditioning, cold drinks and ice cream seem to be the standard of modern summer. But in ancient times, how did people spend the long summer? In this article, we will peek at the ancient summer time through a large number of ancient paintings.   Summer Festival July 4 is the sixth day of the sixth month of the lunar calendar, which has been officially designated as Tian Kuang Festival (天贶节) since the Song Dynasty, with the custom of offering sacrifices to ancestors and prohibiting slaughtering. At this time of the year, ancient people would expose grain, clothes and books to the sun to prevent them from getting moldy and being moth-eaten, so the sixth day of the sixth month was also called the Shai Xi Festival (晒洗节). In the Ming and Qing dynasties, people would take their pets to the river to give them a bath, officials would conduct bathing ceremonies for pets owned by the imperial family, such as elephants brought in from other countries. They are often performed during grand celebrations to show the royal majesty. During the Tian Kuang Festival, ancient people also used to store some well water for brewing sauce and vinegar, and for…

Angelababy (杨颖) Main costume drama works The Wind Blows From Longxi (Liu Ying) Love Yunge from the Desert (Yun Ge) To be announced Long Life Long Street (Main Role)   Bai Lu (白鹿) Main costume drama works One and Only (Cui Shiyi) Song of Youth (Lin Shao Chun) The Legends (Lu Zhaoyao) To be announced Till The End of The Moon (Li Su Su) Ning An Ru Meng (Jiang Xue Ning) The Monkey King 3 (Wu Shuang)   Crystal Yuan (袁冰妍) Main costume drama works My Sassy Princess (Liu Ling) Love and Redemption (Zhu Xuan Ji) To be announced Love Never Fails (Hong Ning) Fox Spirit Matchmaker: Yue Hong (Tu Shan Ya Ya) The Emperor's Love (Feng Qing Huan)   Dilraba Dilmurat (迪丽热巴) Main costume drama works The Blue Whisper (Ji Yun He) The Long Ballad (Li Chang Ge) Eternal Love of Dream (Bai Feng Jiu) The Flame's Daughter (Lie Ruge) Eternal Love (Bai Fengjiu) To be announced Legend of Anle (Ren An Le) Feng Lai Qi (Main Role) The Legend of Sun and Moon (Chang E) Invader (Main Role)   Gulnezer Bextiyar (古力娜扎) Main costume drama works Weaving a Tale of Love (Kudi Liuli) Fighter of the Destiny (Xu…

In Henan, China, there is an immortal mountain: Laojun Mountain. With the snow-capped mountains and clouds surrounding the top, many Hanfu lovers visit here to take pictures of the fairyland in their hearts. The @MediaStorm team, with 30 days and a total of 10,000 photos, used digital technology to replicate this magnificent scene and reproduce this "Cloud-topped heavenly palace".   Build a "Cloud-topped heavenly palace" with 10,000 photos This famous Chinese mountain, which was formed 1.9 billion years ago, reaches an altitude of over 2,200 meters. The team's first test was to wait patiently for the summit to clear due to the constant cloudiness. After five days of waiting, the drone successfully took off. Gliding over the top of the mountain and through the porch, the entire mountain was incorporated into the camera amidst the roiling clouds. A cloud-topped heavenly palace, accurate to the centimeter level, was built in its entirety with digital technology. It mainly records the architecture and surrounding scenery of the Golden Peak Taoist Temple complex. When it comes to photogrammetry, many people are probably unfamiliar with it. Simply put, it is a modeling technique that digitizes a scene. It has long been used in many areas…

Have you ever noticed the motifs on a hanfu? They are diverse and can even be considered the finishing touch to a hanfu. Maybe it is some kind of animal from ancient times or different kinds of plants to match. Most of them have a special meaning, and some fantastical motifs even contain mythological stories.   Animal Motifs Qilin Motifs Although the production environment of the ancients was much less than the modern society, the ancients never skimped on their imagination when it came to creating sacred animals. For example, the Qilin (麒麟). With a dragon head, deer antlers, cow hooves, and lion's tail, the Qilin changed several times before the Tang Dynasty and had no fixed appearance. In the Song Dynasty, the body became a common lion-shaped scaly body, basically into the current form. In "Fantastic Beasts 3: The Mystery of Dumbledore", the Qilin appears as a new fantastic beast. This is the second Chinese mythical creature launched in the "Fantastic Beasts" series, Zouwu from the "Shan Hai Jing" appeared in "Fantastic Beasts 2: The Crimes of Grindelwald". Qilin is a symbol of auspiciousness and has a very high status in ancient times, and has been assigned with simple…

Henan's traditional cultural works are deeply remembered by too many people. The "Tang Palace Night Banquet", a recreation of the Tang Sancai music figurines, shows the beauty of the Tang Dynasty; the "Luo Shen Shui Fu", a breathtakingly beautiful underwater dance, so many netizens amazed: "This is the real traditional culture program". 2022 Chinese 24 Solar Terms series, but also make Henan TV add to the drama catch-up list of every traditional culture lovers. But that's not all, the surprises are just beginning! Henan has spent billions to build China's first panoramic immersive experience theme park - Unique Henan - Land of Dramas, which is currently the world's largest theater cluster, allowing people to experience the charm of traditional Chinese culture in an immersive way. "Unique Henan - Land of Dramas (只有河南·戏剧幻城)", located in Zhongmou County, Zhengzhou City, Henan Province, is a 1,536-acre project, the core area "Huan Cheng (幻城)" is 328 meters long and 15 meters high. It is one of the largest and longest performing theater complexes in China, with 21 theaters of various sizes and nearly 1,000 actors, divided into 3 main plays and 18 smaller plays, with a total play length of nearly 700 minutes. During…

Su embroidery (苏绣, Suzhou Silk Hand Embroidery Art) is the general name of embroidery products in Suzhou, the traditional folk arts. It is one of the four famous embroideries in China and was listed as one of the national intangible cultural heritages in 2006.

More than a thousand years ago, Wei Zhuang once wrote the poem "Spring Tour, apricot blossoms blowing all over the head", walking towards the apricot forest during the blossoming season, and the apricot blossoms would fall on hair bun at the wind. In ancient times, seasonal flowers in addition to floating down in the hair bun, but also may be inserted in the hair or brim, embellished as a touch of spring color in the ancient head. Putting flowers on the head is also called Zan Hua 簪花 (Flower Hairpin, or wearing flowers). In ancient times, both Sheng Hua and Xiangsheng Hua were used to Zan Hua. Sheng Hua is flower, and Xiangsheng Hua is a kind of fake flower made in imitation of a flower. All the flowers mentioned in this article are Sheng Hua. In the Han Dynasty, although the culture of wearing flowers was not really formed, but flowers had already entered people's lives in various forms. For example, on the day of the Chongyang Festival, people in the Han Dynasty, in addition to climbing mountains and drinking chrysanthemum wine, would take off dogwood flowers and wear them around their waists to avoid disasters and repel evil…

Unlike modern clothing, which is updated so frequently, the development of antique Chinese clothing was not only accompanied by the change of dynasties, but also combined with the level of fabrics of the time. However, there is no doubt that different periods in ancient China had distinctive fashion items.   01 Shenyi in Han Dynasty In 1972, when the three-month archaeological excavation ended, the archaeologists of Tomb No. 1 of the Mawangdui Han Tomb in Changsha were still excited. During the subsequent work, they discovered a dozen pieces of well-preserved Western Han costumes, thus opening a window for later generations to peek into the aesthetics of the dress worn by ancient Chinese 2000 years ago. The relics of the tomb that the archaeologists cleaned were from the tomb of Xin Zhui, the wife of Li Cang, the prime minister of Changsha in the early Western Han Dynasty. Based on archaeological and textual records, we know that there were two main types of clothing for the ancient Chinese during the Qin and Han dynasties. Type Yichang (衣裳), in which the clothing of the upper body and the lower body were not connected; Type Shenyi (深衣) in which the upper garment and…

Ready to start deepening your hanfu wardrobe? Start looking into some of your closet staples here: hanfu underlayers!

China has a long history of tea drinking, which emerged in the Tang Dynasty and became prosperous in the Song Dynasty. It is in this context that the story of A Dream of Splendor takes place. In the drama, Liu Yifei as Zhao Pan'er, together with two girlfriends, opened a tea store in Bian Jing, the capital of the Song Dynasty. With Zhao Pan'er's excellent marketing skills, Sun San Niang's delicious pastries, Song Yin Zhang's wonderful Pipa performance, and most importantly, Pan'er's extensive experience in Dian Cha, as well as Cha Bai Xi, their tea store has achieved initial success. Dian Cha (点茶, whisking tea), as an important part of Chinese tea culture, is the main tea drinking method in the Song Dynasty, and also an important way of leisure and entertainment for the literati and ordinary people. Cha Bai Xi (茶百戏, tea painting art), also known as: Fen Cha (分茶), Shui Dan Qin (水丹青). Firstly, the finely ground tea powder is injected into the tea bowl with boiling water, while stirring with a tea whisk, the tea froth floats up and forms a suspension. Then use the teaspoon and water to draw words and patterns on the surface. Cha Bai…

Wedding dresses have become more and more sophisticated in recent years and continue to bring pleasing looks to the audience. But if we rewind the time to twenty years ago, would we be able to see such a wedding dress look in a costume drama?

This year's hottest costume drama: A Dream Of Splendor (梦华录, Meng Hua Lu), started broadcasting. Crystal Liu, Chen Xiao, Ada Liu, and Jelly Lin lead the cast. Since the airing, Meng Hua Lu's popularity has been high. Over 200,000 netizens have rated the drama 8.8 out of 10 on Douban. It is worth mentioning that among the TV dramas in the past five months of 2022, there are only four cdramas with a rating of over 8 on Douban: 8.3 for "The Record of Strange Things", 8.2 for "Beyond", 8.1 for "A Lifelong Journey " and 8.0 for "The Wind Blows From Longxi ". A Dream Of Splendor tells the story of Zhao Pan Er (Crystal Liu), a tea store owner in Qiantang, waiting for news of her fiance, Ou Yang Xu (Xu Hai Qiao), who has gone to the capital (Bian Jing) to take the imperial examination. Unexpectedly, when Ou Yang Xu was admitted to Tanhua, he betrayed Zhao Pan Er and married the daughter of a high-ranking court official. Zhao Pan Er is puzzled and sets off for the capital to ask for clarification. In the process, she befriends Gu Qian Fan (Chen Xiao), the commander of the…

The Duanwu Festival (端午节, Dragon Boat Festival) has long been transformed into a concrete and profound contemporary cultural symbol in the annual ritualistic repetition of the action. As the fifth day of the fifth lunar month approaches, various flavors of Zongzi are marketed, many traditional villages begin preparing for dragon boat races, and Chinese office workers and students await the holiday with great anticipation. Are there any other traditional Duanwu customs that have continued from ancient times? And how did the ancient people prepare for the Duanwu Festival? Let's search the Duanwu Festival in the classic paintings that have been passed down through the ages.   Eat Zongzi Whenever the Duanwu is mentioned, Qu Yuan is the most familiar to people. In order to commemorate Qu Yuan, who committed himself to the Miluo River, on every fifth day of May, people throw Zongzi into the river; at the same time, they make dragon boats to expel the augur dragon so that Qu Yuan's flesh will not be robbed. This is also the most widespread source of Zongzi and dragon boat racing. As the most ritualistic necessity of the Duanwu Festival, eating Zongzi has long been a popular habit for all Chinese. Many…

2021 can be considered a prolific year for Chinese hanfu costume related programs. In addition to the familiar Henan TV, which presents a wonderful tour series on the occasion of Chinese traditional festivals, there are also a number of hanfu programs based on Chinese hanfu, traditional dance, and traditional sports events. This article sorts out these programs for you and will continue to update the latest ones. In chronological order by program broadcast.   2022 24节气系列 · 24 Solar Terms   2022 端午奇妙游 · The Marvelous Tour of the Dragon Boat Festival Broadcast time: June 2, 2022 Type: Gala Duration: 56 minutes https://youtu.be/-qtMsHX86x8 2022 The Marvelous Tour of the Dragon Boat Festival is a Duanwu Festival program produced by Henan TV and co-produced by Youku. The program tells the multiple origins of the Dragon Boat Festival by expanding from the commemorating Qu Yuan to knowledge about astrology and solar terms.   2022 元宵奇妙游 · Lantern Festival Wonderful Tour Broadcast time: February 14, 2022 Type: Gala Duration: 52 minutes https://youtu.be/nnVdmtrbNLo "Lantern Festival Wonderful Tour" is a series of "Chinese Festivals" produced by Henan TV and co-produced by Youku. Through 3 chapters, the audience can feel the hope of "Yuan", the romance of…

  Chen Xiao (陈晓) Main costume drama works A Dream of Splendor (Gu Qian Fan) Nothing Gold Can Stay (Shen Xingyi) The Qin Empire III (Mi Yan) The Three Heroes and Five Gallants (Bai Yutang) Legend of Lu Zhen (Gao Zhan) To be announced Long Life Long Street (Main Role) The Ingenious One (Main Role)   Chen Xingxu (陈星旭) Main costume drama works Goodbye My Princess (Li Chengyin) The Legend of the Condor Heroes 2017 (Yang Kang) To be announced Love When The Stars Fall (Shao Dian You Qin) Feng Lai Qi (Main Role)   Cheng Yi (成毅) Main costume drama works The Imperial Age (Young Zhu Di) Love and Redemption (Yu Sifeng) The Promise of Chang'an (Xiao Chengxu) Stand by Me (Qi Yan) To be announced Immortal Samsara (Tang Zhou) Fox Spirit Matchmaker: Zhu Ye (Main Role) Si Hai Zhong Ming(Main Role) The Lotus Casebook (Li Lian Hua) General Order (Main Role)   Gong Jun (龚俊) Main costume drama works Word of Honor (Wen Ke Xing) The Player (Ren Yi Xia) Unique Lady (Zhong Wu Mei) To be announced Legend of Anle (Crown Prince Han Ye) Fox Spirit Matchmaker: Yue Hong (Main Role) Si Ming (Main Role)   Jeremy…

When was the traditional Chinese fan born and what did it first look like? These are no longer available in kind. According to the speculation of Mr. Shen Congwen, the traditional Chinese fan was used at least not later than after the appearance of pottery in the Neolithic period.   Pre Qin Dynasty In ancient times, human beings picked a leaf of a plant or a feather of a bird in the hot summer, and simply processed it to fan the wind and take shade from the sun, which is the prototype of the original fan. In the initial era, the fan was called "箑(shà)" or "萐(shà)", and also "翣(shà)”", and only in the later development was it unified and called "扇(shàn)". The above-mentioned different fan of the ancient name, but also reflects the material of the fan at that time are bulrush, feathers, bamboo, and so on. The oldest fan excavation artifact at present is a short-handled bamboo fan, also known as Bian Mian (便面), unearthed from an ancient tomb of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty in Jing'an County, Jiangxi. As the earliest image of a fan, it appears on a bronze pot unearthed in Chengdu, which belongs to the…

In recent years, hanfu has been flourishing all over China, and there are large and small hanfu events held every month. So what are the specific cities with the best hanfu atmosphere? Hanfu Zixun launched the Top Hanfu Cities of China contest to reflect the different development of hanfu around the country. With 62.01% of the votes, Chengdu, Sichuan topped the list, the only city with more than 50% of the votes, and was drastically outperformed by all the other cities. Xiuwu ranked seventh, which should have a lot to do with its success in holding the first Hanfu Expo in 2021.   NO.1 Chengdu (成都) The No. 1 hanfu city is: Chengdu. After pandas, hot pot and mahjong, Chengdu has a new calling card: the Hanfu capital. It is not only because of its nationally known "Hanfu Street", but also because it has nearly 220,000 hanfu lovers, the first in China in terms of the number of Hanfu Tongpao (同袍; Hanfu fans call each other Tongpao). Chengdu's excellent hanfu culture atmosphere cannot be separated from the local government's strong support for the promotion of hanfu culture.   NO.2 Hangzhou (杭州) Hangzhou, known as "Hang" for short, was known as…