Autumn Lotus

Model’s info: height-161cm, weight-47kg, wear size-M (for reference only)

Three Song Pieces, One Lotus Print

The shirt takes its sleeve from a Song cut: wide where it leaves the shoulder, narrowing to a cuff that sits just past the wrist. The Chinese nickname for it is the “airplane sleeve”, and the shape is what makes the piece wearable — the volume falls from the shoulder rather than the arm, so it layers over the camisole without bulk. The front closes on a cross-collar and can be worn either crossed to the side or squared off at the centre, which is the difference between a formal and a casual read on the same garment.

Under it sits a camisole cut straight across the chest on thin straps, a modernised mo — the Song underlayer, originally a wrapped band of cloth worn beneath everything else. The skirt is a two-panel wrap: the panels overlap at the front, tie at the waist with a 145 cm sash, and the hem is gathered into a single ruffle. That ruffle is the one deliberately unserious note in the set; without it the silhouette would be a straight column.

The print carries the season. A lotus band in zhuanghua — a supplementary-weft brocade technique worked on the loom, the same family as Nanjing cloud brocade — runs down the shirt’s front edge, so the pattern reads as a woven stripe rather than a flat print. The ninth-century poet Li Qunyu described a young lotus as half sunk in spring water, its fragrant heart still furled, and that is the stage the motif holds: leaves and buds, not full bloom.

Fabric & Fit

Each piece uses a different cloth, and the labels need translating. The shirt is a twill the Chinese trade calls gaoli xie: 55% viscose — plant-cellulose fibre sold in the West as rayon — with 30% polyester and 15% nylon holding the structure. The camisole is 100% polyester in a crackle crepe, the crinkled surface that keeps it from clinging. The skirt is 50% viscose, 30% polyester and 20% nylon in an ice-silk weave with a slubbed, bamboo-node texture, which is what gives the celadon its dry hand and its faint horizontal line.

Nothing here is heavy, and nothing is sheer. The shirt is dense enough to wear over the camisole without a third layer; the crepe camisole is opaque on its own; the skirt hangs in one layer with the ruffle doubling the hem. In cool weather the shirt works as a light outer layer over a knit.

All three pieces come in one size, so pick the size that fits the tightest garment — the camisole. It is cut to fit a chest of 88, 94 or 99 cm at S/M/L, while the shirt runs 104, 110 and 116 cm; there is deliberate ease between the two, and the skirt ties anywhere up to 75, 85 or 95 cm. If your chest and waist point at different sizes, follow the chest: the sash takes up the waist by several centimetres in either direction. The shirt is 57–63 cm at the back and the skirt 81–87 cm; on the model, at 161 cm in size M, the hem falls to mid-calf.

Styling Inspiration

• Everyday — the three pieces together with flat leather sandals read as a soft autumn set rather than costume. The shirt over jeans, with the skirt left at home, is the least conspicuous way in.
• Work — celadon and dusty pink sit close enough to neutral that the set passes in an office; keep the accessories plain and let the brocade band do the work.
• Cooler weather — the shirt layers over a fine turtleneck and under a wool coat, and the skirt takes tights and boots without losing its line.
• Photographs — the ruffle and the sash both move, so the set photographs well walking; a folding fan and a hairpin finish it, and neither comes with the order.

Buyer Size Reference

Measurements shared by recent buyers, with the size each one chose.

Weight is doing the work here, not height. Three of the five buyers between 160 and 162 cm took M at 55 to 57 kg, so M holds a fairly wide band; the one S went to the shortest and lightest buyer at 155 cm and 51 kg, and the one L to 164 cm and 65 kg. If you sit at 60 kg or above with a full chest, size up — the camisole is the piece with the least give.

Care & Notes

Hand wash below 30°C / 86°F with a mild detergent, and do not leave any piece to soak. Squeeze the water out instead of wringing — the crepe camisole keeps its crackle only if it is not twisted, and the brocade band will distort if it is scrubbed. Do not bleach. Line dry in the shade and out of direct sun; the celadon skirt is the piece most likely to fade at the fold lines. Iron below 110°C / 230°F, from the reverse, and use a pressing cloth over the brocade. Dry cleaning is fine for all three.

Wash the pink shirt apart from the celadon skirt for the first two or three washes; the shirt releases a little colour and the pale skirt will show it. Tie the sash before the skirt goes into the water so it does not wrap around the rest of the load, and dry the skirt hanging from the waistband rather than folded over a rail, which sets a crease across the ruffle. Store the set flat with the brocade band facing inwards so it does not catch on a hanger.