Waist-length skirts: the year-by-year decline of Hanfu theoretical standards | Hanfu traced back to the source

Author: Chunmei Fox

Published "Illustrated Chinese Traditional Costumes"

I originally wanted to write about the Hanfu chapter of the horse-faced skirt, but I found that I had to talk about the Hanfu skirt first. Because the Ming jacket skirt, which is mainly matched with a horse-faced skirt, was not added to the Hanfu style library from the beginning of the Hanfu movement, but has experienced a process of introduction (questioning) - competition (evidence) - popularity (promotion) - explosive style (hegemony).

So, let's first talk about the Hanfu skirt, which is considered to be the only one in the upper and lower 5,000 years.

The unique position of the Hanfu skirt

Due to the influence of opera, ladies' paintings, etc., for a long time, the costume style of costume dramas was divided into Qing Dynasty costumes and other ancient costumes (for related content, see "New Ancient Costumes: Mei Lanfang of the Fairy Ben Xian"), that is, in addition to the Qing Dynasty background story, specific costume designs will be used, and the costumes of other dynasties can be universal, especially women's clothing, and can even be used to Qing Dynasty civilian women. And this kind of clothing is called a skirt by the Hanfu circle.

(Yue Opera)

(Peking Opera)

(Costume Drama)

There are also reasons for the mistakes of ancient costume scholars such as Shen Congwen and Gao Chunming, who used the image existing in the picture of the ladies of the Song, Ming and Qing dynasties as the blueprint for research. Under the comprehensive influence, both costume dramas and early Hanfu lovers have long believed that the "skirt" of the top and bottom skirt is a basic style of women's clothing that has run through all the history of China.

(At that time, it was labeled as "Ming Dynasty mid-waist skirt")

(At that time, it was labeled as "Han Dynasty Women's Skirt")

(At that time, it was marked as "women's skirt at the beginning of the Warring States period")

(At that time, it was marked as "Song Skirt")

The basic form of the Hanfu skirt is the combination of the top and the long skirt, and the "undergarment" of the Hanfu is a general term for almost all short tops, although there are also words such as "shirt" and "jacket" in the follow-up, but due to the cognitive habits of Hanfu lovers, the Hanfu shirt skirt and Hanfu jacket skirt have almost become the style name corresponding to the specific image.

In particular, the schematic diagram of ancient costumes and costumes (the above group picture) that flowed out of Gao Chunming's related books, there are many "underskirt" styles of this kind of top and skirt, and they belong to different eras, which just caters to the demands of Hanfu lovers at that time-

(1) Handover is the main feature of Hanfu;

(2) The upper and lower clothes (skirts) are the main characteristics of Hanfu;

(3) Hanfu has thousands of years of unity, regardless of dynasties, only ethnic clothing characteristics.

In the early days, Hanfu would organize different dynasties and styles of Hanfu into different categories to meet these demands, and it was often divided into the "clothing system" in which the upper and lower clothes were cut separately, the "deep clothing system" in which the upper and lower clothes were cut separately and then sewn into the whole, and the "general tailoring system" in which the upper and lower clothes were cut separately.

(Hanfu clothing, drawn in January 2009)

(Hanfu deep clothing system, drawn in January 2009)

(Hanfu Tong tailoring, January 2009 drawing)

Later, due to the deepening of Hanfu lovers' understanding of ancient clothing, this classification was difficult to bear, so many categories were expanded from it. For example, in the "clothing system", there is a division between the skirt system and the hakama system.

(Hanfu Introductory Promotional Post)

(Modern Hanfu System Version 1.0)

But no matter how it is divided, the skirt is the most important style of Hanfu in the early Hanfu movement, and it is considered that Han women have not been cut off until they shave their hair and wear clothes (at that time, they had not yet begun to identify with the Ming jacket skirt).

(Promotional materials about underskirts in Hanfu at that time)

(Schematic diagram of the underskirt drawn by Hanfu KOLs, drawn in 2006)

The pull between Hanfu styles and dynasties

However, a few years ago, China only divided clothing styles and did not distinguish clothing dynasties, which was too challenging for both historical objectivity and cognitive subjectivity. In fact, with the further differentiation of Hanfu skirts, it is difficult to reverse the momentum of dynastic differentiation, but they often have two faces, which can be called "X-made Hanfu" or "XX skirts".

(Different styles of Hanfu skirts)

The most typical of these is the "full-breasted skirt" (often called "high-waisted skirt" at that time to show the difference between it and the "middle-waisted skirt"), which is the Tang Hanfu, and the division of styles is essentially the division of dynasties.

(Schematic diagram of a Tang skirt drawn by Hanfu KOLs, drawn in 2007)

(Hanfu full-breasted skirt)

At that time, it was also believed that there was a high-waisted skirt worn with half an arm, which was the style of the early Tang Dynasty. However, due to the lack of clarity in the schematic diagram, there are also skirts that are tied under the breasts.

(Early Tang Dynasty women's clothes, the text is the original match)

(Hanfu full-breasted skirt with half arms)

Nowadays, the relatively rare "placket skirt" (at that time, it was also called a "straight-necked skirt" to distinguish it from a "cross-collared skirt") was considered to be a Song Hanfu at the time. At that time, there was a debate about whether to wear a collared shirt or a bandeau in the placket, because according to the theory of Hanfu, the collared middle coat is the base clothing of all Hanfu (see "Zhongyi: The real disappearance, it is always quiet| "Hanfu" traces the origin"), but a large number of historical images prove the existence of bandeau tops, and the butt layering collar is not good enough to look at.

(Schematic diagram of a Song-made skirt drawn by Hanfu KOLs, drawn in 2007)

(Hanfu placket skirt)

Later, the examination faction in the Hanfu circle found that the Song Dynasty was more common in a kind of cardigan, which is now called a Hanfu jacket. As a result, there are two different ways to wear Hanfu, the Song Hanfu wearing method of wearing the Hanfu jacket outside the Hanfu collared skirt, or the flexible wearing method of making a cardigan into a long coat that can be tied inside the skirt or outside the skirt.

(How to wear a single-wear collared skirt and a matching cardigan skirt of the Hanfu Song Dynasty)

(How to wear the elongated top version of the Hanfu cardigan skirt)

There is also a more unpopular style of the cardigan "shirt skirt", which is worn by a long-to-hip large-sleeved shirt tied outside the skirt, and the time positioning is Wei and Jin.

(At that time, it was labeled as "Wei and Jin Women's Shirt and Skirt")

(Hanfu shirt skirt)

Due to the Wei and Jin dynasties for the Hanfu circle at that time, it is difficult to argue that it was a pure-blooded Han dynasty, and the shirt skirt was not really promoted, but it was recorded as a style that belonged to the Hanfu "skirt system" but was earlier than the "jacket skirt" and was not named in the format of "XX skirt". What I didn't expect is that now the Hanfu skirt is declining, but it is returning in the name of "Wei and Jin Feng", which can be regarded as a reincarnation, but this is a later story, and we can talk about the "Wei and Jin style" in Hanfu in the future.

The final standard Hanfu skirt

So where does the most basic cross-collar important undergarment exist? Exists in the Han and Ming systems. Among them, there are similar cultural relics unearthed in the Han-made skirts, but because the visual symbols of the Han-made Hanfu are almost occupied by all kinds of curved skirts (see "Is the "Curved Skirt" a Speculative Thing?) | "Hanfu" traces back to the source"), so the Han-made skirt has hardly been practiced.

(The skirt unearthed from the Han tomb of Wuwei Mozuizi)

(A sketch made by Beigong Huan based on the line diagram on the archaeological report)

And only the picture of the lady is used as a basis (see "Also drunk!") What age is there still people who take Qiu Ying's ladies' paintings as Ming Dynasty costumes!? But the Ming Hanfu that could not find similar cultural relics became the final belonging of the Hanfu skirt. In other words, although the Hanfu skirt is a style that spans more than 1,000 years in Hanfu propaganda, in fact, the typical image that can be found is only the Ming system. To be precise, it is the Ming system before it is examined, so that everyone can understand why when the Ming Hanfu begins to be reversed by the evidence, it will encounter a huge resistance to the Hanfu circle.

(Schematic diagram of a Ming skirt drawn by a Hanfu KOL, drawn in 2007)

(Hanfu with a cross-collared skirt made at that time)

As a basic model, the Hanfu collar mid-waist skirt can be matched with a variety of clothing items. Nowadays, the "drapery/bib", which was still popular at the time due to the influence of the ladies' figures, is a short skirt that is added to the long skirt.

(At that time, it was labeled as "Ming Dynasty skirt with waist skirt")

(Hanfu skirt and drapery)

At that time, it was also very popular to add Hanfu half-arm, a name that still exists in Hanfu today, but the way it is made is not the same. At that time, half-arms were made in a more liberal way, and almost every house made a different way of making them, and the way to wear them and match them was relatively short, and it was even possible to wear it alone as a pretend fashion, so it was very popular at the time.

(Hanfu skirt with different styles of half-arm matching)

At that time, the way to highlight it as a Ming Hanfu, that is, to deepen the dynastic attributes on the body of the collared skirt, was to add a cloak with a rather opera flavor. Before the promotion of the Ming jacket skirt, this was the most obvious way to wear.

(Hanfu Ming cloak at that time)

Then the Ming Hanfu entered the era of the jacket skirt familiar to the modern generation of Hanfu lovers, and despite criticism and resistance, it finally came unstoppably.

However, before the skirt was really popular, people still thought that the skirt and the skirt were just the difference between the jacket and the skirt being tied inside or outside, whether the clothes were made in a single layer or hanging inside, whether the collar was added with or without white collars, and whether the sleeve shape was a lute. As people became aware of the growing difference between the underskirt and the jacket skirt, the wider range of Hanfu lovers regarded it as a style independent of the underskirt.

(Promotional materials about underskirts in Hanfu at that time)

Finally, about what is a "undergarment", you can see the article "The Mystery of the "Undergarment": What kind of clothes can be short, warm and sexy? 》。

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