What was the typical attire of a woman in the Ming Dynasty? Except for some ceremonial occasions, women need to wear round-necked robes, coats and other dress-like coats, and the most common clothing styles worn by women in the Ming Dynasty are actually very clear, that is, the upper body wears a jacket and the lower body wears a skirt.
The skirt is the "horse face skirt" that is popular all over the country this year, and the "horse face skirt" is the name of its image. The original meaning of "horse face" refers to a pier platform protruding from the city wall, and its façade is shaped like a horse face. The horse-faced skirt can get out of the circle, one is that it is convenient to match with modern clothing, and the other is that it is easy to move after wearing. This is also the original intention of the horse face skirt was created.
Today's various Hanfu merchants have produced horse-faced skirts, but only by truly understanding and mastering the design language of horse-faced skirts in the Ming Dynasty can we transcend the likeness.
A horse-faced skirt and a jacket are worn by two dressed women
In the colloquial language of the Ming Dynasty, "three locks of hair combed and two pieces of clothing" were often used to refer to women. For example, the thirty-second chapter of "The Legend of Marriage in the Awakening World" wrote: "This kind of beautiful act, some of the people we brought with Eguanbo don't do it, but teach a woman who combs her hair with three locks and dresses twice, what do you want to do with this eyebrows?" "Two-cut dressing is the basic attire of women's casual wear since the Tang and Song dynasties, and it is also a typical match for women in the Ming Dynasty.
It's just that this dress and clothes are different from the previous generation. The skirt is the "horse-faced skirt" that has become popular all over the country in recent years, and the "horse-faced skirt" is the name of its image in later generations. The horse-faced skirt can get out of the circle, one is that it is convenient to match with modern clothing, and the other is that it is easy to move after wearing. This is also the original intention of the horse face skirt was created. The originator of the horse-faced skirt is the "spiral skirt" of the Song Dynasty. Meng Hui, the author of the book "Manuscript of the History of Women's Costumes in the Central Plains" and a clothing researcher, told me that there is such a record in the Northern Song Dynasty's book "Jianglinji Magazine": "It is also said that women who do not wear wide hakama and skirts, make a rotating skirt, and must open their hips before and after in order to ride a donkey." Meng Hui said that since the Han Dynasty, the traditional women's skirt has been a one-piece "piece skirt". The pioneering nature of the spiral skirt lies in the fact that it is two skirt pieces partially superimposed together, and then sewn to the skirt waist, so that the skirt will form two slits, one light and one dark. In this way, when riding a donkey, the skirt will not be stacked on the saddle, but will be separated by a slit to cover the legs, which is very convenient. This was the prototype of the horse-faced skirt.
The original meaning of "horse face" refers to a pier platform protruding from the city wall, and its façade is shaped like a horse face. The first time the word "horse face" was used to describe clothing was in a Ming Dynasty work to describe the structure of a robe called "trolling". In the Ming Dynasty, the development of the horse-faced skirt on the rotating skirt was to pleate on both sides of the overlapping skirt door, which not only increased the activity space of the skirt, but also had an aesthetic effect. The result is that it resembles the lower part of the troll, with a rectangular horse face formed at the intersection of the middle skirt doors, flanked by pleats.
The restoration and display of Ming and Qing Dynasty clothing by graduate students of Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology reflects the integration of clothing culture at the intersection of Ming and Qing dynasties (models from left to right: Fang Nana, Tang Shuo, Lei Minghao, Huang Yifei, makeup: Liu Wenyu, Liu Wenyu, instructor: Jiang Yuqiu) (photo by Huang Yu)
Today's various Hanfu merchants have produced horse-faced skirts, but only by truly understanding and mastering the design language of horse-faced skirts in the Ming Dynasty can we transcend the likeness. For example, how should pleating be done? Jiang Yuqiu, a professor at Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology, once repaired a horse-faced skirt unearthed from the tomb of the Li family tomb in Wangdian Town, Jiaxing, Zhejiang, "At that time, the skirt was very broken, looking at the creases on it, some were inward, some were outward, and I used origami to imitate and ponder." She noticed that in the middle of each set of pleats on the left and right of the horse-faced skirt, there was a "hugging pleat". "What is the function of the design of the 'hugging pleat'? When the pleats on both sides of it apply pressure from the outside to the inside, the pleats push the pressure from the inside to the sides, so that the pressure on the inside and outside cancel each other out, and the sense of space created by the skirt is more natural. Later, in more Ming Dynasty horse skirt cultural relics, Jiang Yuqiu saw the existence of hugging pleats, and admired the wisdom of the ancients in design. And now when we imitate the horse-faced skirt of the Ming Dynasty, it is often easy to ignore these details.
There are also rules for the pattern decoration of the horse-faced skirt. Dong Jin, the author of the Q version of the Ming Dynasty Clothing Atlas and a special member of the Ming Dynasty Imperial Tombs Research Association in the Beijing Ming Tombs Special Economic Zone, told me that many merchants now make the horse-faced skirt look gorgeous, and the ornaments are all over the skirt. In fact, the decoration of the horse-faced skirt of the Ming Dynasty was mainly on the knee and bottom. In the early Ming Dynasty, the tunic was shorter, and the matching horse-faced skirt would decorate the knee skirt. In the late Ming Dynasty, when the blouse was longer, the horse-faced skirt would decorate the bottom, because only the pattern at the bottom of the skirt could be exposed. And if both the knee and the bottom are used for decoration, the knee is thicker and the bottom is thinner, and it must be accompanied by a shorter top. On the contrary, if the knee is thinner, the bottom is thicker, and the visual center is at the bottom, it must be matched with a long shirt on top. From the decoration of the knee and bottom skirt of the horse-faced skirt, it can also be inferred what the blouse should wear. ”
Stills from "Shangshi".
Shandong Confucius Yan Shenggong family left a number of clothing, including more than 100 pieces of clothing related to the Ming Dynasty, is the largest existing batch of Ming Dynasty clothing information. A green and green makeup gauze python skirt in the old collection of Confucius is a very important horse-faced skirt in this collection. The pattern on it is a five-clawed python dragon pattern, which is of a very high level, which can be seen to be a gift from the emperor. In terms of craftsmanship, it is a combination of makeup and gold weaving, showing luxury. The color of the green is similar to the color of the horse-faced skirt worn by the women in the "Lantern Festival Pleasure Picture of Ming Xianzong", indicating that it was a popular color at that time. It is constantly being copied by today's Hanfu merchants, especially the python dragon pattern on it fits the zodiac of this year's Year of the Dragon, and the replica version has become a "hot style" worn before the Spring Festival this year. This skirt has two stripes that are narrow at the top and wide at the bottom. Dong Jin said that this horse-faced skirt used to be considered to be one with another dark green woven gold yarn cloud shoulder and sleeve phoenix pattern women's short shirt in some atlases in some albums, but in fact, its wider bottom skirt shows that it should be matched with a longer blouse, and according to the grandeur of its python dragon pattern, the blouse should be matched with a round-necked robe.
In the 2020 "Ming Dynasty Costume Culture Exhibition" held by the Shandong Museum, Chu Yan, a professor at the Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology, cooperated with the Shandong Museum to reproduce three pieces of clothing from the old collection of Confucius, not only for in-depth study of their production technology, but also for future exhibitions that can be used as alternatives. What she chose to replicate was another white dark veil embroidered bird-patterned horse-faced dress. The decoration on this skirt does not have a symbol of rank, so it is only a "casual dress", but Chu Yan has a soft spot for it. "Because many of the decorations of the horse-faced skirt are a kind of 'two-sided continuous' recurring pattern, the embroidery on this horse-faced skirt is like a painting, and each element is different." Chu Yan teaches fashion design at school and also has her own "new Chinese" style clothing brand, and feels that such a pattern layout is also very inspiring for today's Chinese clothing design.
Chu Yan's team at the Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology copied the white dark gauze embroidered bird-patterned horse-faced skirt from the old collection of Confucius
Chu Yan showed me the replica skirt, which was all decorated on the bottom and embroidered with silk threads with mountain stones, small bridges and flowing water, peonies, pomegranate flowers, water lilies, hollyhocks, morning glories, bamboos, butterflies, kingfishers, luan phoenixes, and so on. "The difficulty of replicating it is that the embroidery pattern is hidden in the pleats, and you have to unfold it carefully to see it all." This kind of embroidery uses the "Lu embroidery" with Shandong regional style, and the silk thread it uses is slightly thicker, and the embroidery has a unique roughness in the north. "And you look to have flowers that are about the same color, but the color of the silk threads you use is different." Chu Yan used the color card to compare and saw that the whole embroidery involved more than 30 colors. It took four embroiderers a total of two months to re-embroider the dress. This process was enough to make Chu Yan sigh that the aristocratic family at that time was also very particular about such a horse-faced skirt used as casual clothes.
The jacket worn on the horse-faced skirt had a very prominent feature in the Ming Dynasty, that is, from the middle of the Ming Dynasty, in addition to the traditional round neck and cross-collar, there was a vertical collar such a shape, and the vertical collar placket and the vertical collar placket became a common women's top style. This vertical collar is different from the neckline of the cheongsam that people later knew better, its collar should be high, and it did not fit the neck tightly, but left a margin, which became the basis for the evolution of the stand collar of Chinese women's clothing. Women can also turn the neckline down slightly when wearing it to present a different visual effect.
Vertical collars and buttons were a feature of women's clothing from the middle of the Ming Dynasty onwards. The picture shows the women's tops produced by "Minghuatang" (photo by Zhang Lei)
The advent of the vertical collar also provided the stage for a decorative style, and that was the use of buttons. Meng Hui told me that during the frequent trade between the Ming Dynasty and Central and West Asia, all kinds of foreign gems became the material for making buttons. A delicate bartack button will be made of gold and silver, inlaid with precious stones, and then made into various shapes such as flowers, grasses, insects, people, gods and Buddhas, or auspicious characters. In the case of a shirt with a vertical collar and a placket, up to seven gold, silver and gemstone buttons could be attached to it, and noble women would use it to show off their wealth.
Why do vertical collars appear? Meng Hui said one explanation is that the middle of the Ming Dynasty was a period of Xiaoice, and the collar was raised to help keep out the cold. Another explanation is that Cheng Zhu Lixue of the Ming Dynasty had strict requirements for women to maintain chastity, especially in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, the concept of human taboos was strengthened to the extreme, "with vertical collars and buttons, the patriarchal society's concept of human taboos won the final victory, and women's necks disappeared under clothing."
The Hanfu brand "Minghuatang" refers to several shirts and skirts produced by the old Tibetan clothing of Confucius, among which the green green makeup yarn python skirt and the dark green woven gold yarn cloud shoulder through the sleeve Xiang phoenix pattern women's short shirt are completely reproduced (photo by Zhang Lei)
The masculine dress between the robe and the trolling, the static movement
In contrast to the matching of women's jackets and horse skirts, if you choose a set of clothes that represent the common clothing of men in the Ming Dynasty, it must be Taoist robes. Fan Lian, a scholar of the Ming Dynasty, wrote in the clothing part of "Yunjian According to the Catalogue of Copy, Volume II, and Customs": "Men's clothes ...... Long and Wan have used Taoist robes. That is to say, since the middle and late periods of the Longqing and Wanli Emperors of the Ming Dynasty, the Taoist robe has become a robe often worn by men, from imperial officials to the Shishu class.
As its name suggests, the Taoist robe was originally the Taoist garment of the Taoist Buddha. Costume scholars Xu Xiaopan and Wang Lei mentioned when combing the origin and changes of Taoist robes that after the unification of the world in the Yuan Dynasty, due to the strong support of the royal family, Taoist activities increased, and the activities of Taoist priests frequently appeared in the public's field of vision. Because of its loose body and wide sleeves, the Taoist robes worn outside it can reflect the elegant style of the literati, and are favored by the scholar class. In the process of secularization, its form was gradually established. A typical Ming Dynasty robe is straight up and down, with a large placket collar, and the collar is often inlaid with white or plain collars. It has a "concealed hem" to cover the slits on the sides of the body and prevent the underwear from being exposed. When wearing a robe, it can be worn with silk tape, a thin cloth belt or a large belt around the waist.
This blue dark flower gauze robe is woven with crane title Ganoderma lucidum, longevity peach, pomegranate and Sihe Ruyi pattern, which is in the collection of the Confucius Museum
When Chu Yan copied the men's clothing in the old collection of Confucius at that time, she chose a blue robe with dark veil. It is dyed with indigo, which cannot be seen in the picture, but in fact, there are dark lines on the yarn, and the crane is woven with Ganoderma lucidum, longevity peach, pomegranate and Sihe Ruyi pattern. "This style is simple, but it is very classic, and at a glance you can think of the appearance of a scholar in the Ming Dynasty." Chu Yan said to me. The difficulty of today's imitation lies not in the dark grain, but in the material of yarn. "Today's looms can weave very fine yarns, but it's a bit difficult to imitate the feeling of handmade yarns that were thicker and uneven in thickness."
In fact, the leno texture accounts for the vast majority of the materials of these costumes in the old collection of Confucius, indicating that this was the most revered fabric at that time. This also gives inspiration to today's Hanfu brands. Zhong Yi, the founder of Minghuatang, a brand specializing in the production of Ming Hanfu, told me that after watching the exhibition in the old collection of Confucius, he found that the yarn texture of the clothing would be very structured and muscular, and although the silk was soft, it was not as good as the yarn in shaping, so he decisively changed the focus of the product fabric to yarn. "And there is another advantage of gauze fabrics, that is, the ancients would also wear multi-layer underwear underneath, and the outer layer of yarn would not be too hot." Gauze robes are also commonly found in Ming Dynasty novel notes. The first volume of "Yu Shi Mingyan" describes the dress of a merchant surnamed Chen: he wears a Su-like hundred-pillar mane hat on his head and a lake-gauze robe with a fish belly white. The twenty-sixth chapter of "The Legend of Marriage in the Awakening World" wrote: "A child at the age of eighteen or nineteen...... Wearing a goose yellow gauze robe, big red satin pig's mouth shoes......"
Chu Yan's team copied another old Confucian costume - a blue dark gauze robe
There are many colors of robes. In the book "Zhu's Shunshui Tanqi", the Ming Dynasty scholar Zhu Zhiyu talked about the main colors of Taoist clothing "moon white, cuilan, sky blue, tooth color, pine flower color, sauce color, cashmere color, green onion white, the above eight kinds can be used". Lu Shusheng, the secretary of the Ministry of Rites in the early Wanli Dynasty of the Ming Dynasty, asked the painter to paint a portrait of himself, recording his appearance in different clothes, forming a "Lu Wending Gong Album". In one of the portraits, he is also wearing a pink robe, which has a sense of fashion. It is the tolerance of the robe in terms of color that also makes it a favorite object for male lovers of Ming Hanfu today.
In addition to the Taoist robe, another style of men's clothing in the Ming Dynasty is also sought after today. This is the sticker and trolling that belong to the shape of the broken waist robe. According to the research of clothing researchers Chang Xiaojun and Wang Chuyun, Tieli and Trolla have the same origin, that is, the braided robe of the Mengyuan period. They all look like they are crossed collars and right sides, and the front bodice is not cut up and down, but is divided into a top and a bottom and then connected, and there are skirt pleats on the hem. But there are some differences in shape between the two, the most obvious is that the hem of the sticker is all pleated, like a pleated skirt; In the middle of the hem of the trolling is a "horse face", similar to the lower part of the horse face skirt.
In the Ming Dynasty, the two also had differences in the class of clothing and the purpose of wearing. The people wearing it in the post are wider, from princes and nobles to commoners. And it can be worn both externally and internally. It can be very luxurious to wear on the outside, with patterns like python patterns. Scholars generally wear a practical sticker inside, because its "pleated skirt"-like design can give a good support to the outer garment. It is usually the ceremonial dress of princes and nobles and court officials, and after the middle of the Ming Dynasty, it is mainly used as a military uniform.
Why do Hanfu lovers notice this kind of clothes? This has a lot to do with another "star" collection in the old collection of Confucius - the fragrant color of the flying fish - and the imitation of it by enthusiasts. In 2013, Chen Xuefei was also a member of the community organization "Hanfu Beijing", and he and some of his "colleagues" formed a small group called "String Control Division", where everyone wore Hanfu together and practiced traditional archery together. One day, Chen Xuefei saw the picture in the fragrant Mafei fish sticker and thought it was very beautiful, so he decided to use his expertise in art to imitate it.
Fragrant hemp flying fish sticker, Shandong Museum collection (photo by Zhou Kun)
"I put together all the pictures I could find and spent two months hand-painting them on a cotton robe. Because it is the decoration of cloud shoulders, sleeves, and knee shirts, the pattern distribution has a certain regularity, and the reverse side of the clothing is symmetrical, which can be inferred. Chen Xuefei told me. This dress was well received in the circle, so he used a print to let each member of the "String Control Division" have one. Later, there were always Hanfu lovers who kept coming to buy the same clothes, and Chen Xuefei simply embarked on the road of commercial production. He founded the "Control String Division", a brand that mainly makes Ming Hanfu men's clothing, and the most popular product is still the sticker or trolling of the flying fish pattern.
The members of the "String Control Division" regularly practice archery, and the style of the stickers they wear is a reference to the fragrant hemp flying fish stickers in the old collection of the Confucian Mansion. From left to right: Wang Runyu, Chen Xuefei, Sun Yuxiang (photo by Huang Yu)
Such clothes are also called "flying fish suits" by Hanfu lovers. "But that's not the right name." Zhou Yu, the author of the book "Illustrated History of Chinese Armor", told me, "'Flying Fish' is a pattern of names, it looks like a dragon but not a dragon, it is an image with a dragon head and a fish tail. The flying fish suit belongs to the gift, which is a kind of bonus, but it is not the only gift in the Ming Dynasty. In the Ming Dynasty's clothing system, the highest level of the pattern was the python, followed by the flying fish, and the third was the bullfight, which was a kind of 'dragon-like' pattern, that is, it was very similar to the dragon, but the details were different. Zhou Yu said, so "flying fish clothing" can refer to all clothes with flying fish patterns, which can be of different shapes, and does not necessarily refer to stickers or dragging. "And everyone sees the brocade clothes in the film and television works, wearing stickers or dragging, all of them are collectively referred to as 'flying fish suits', and there may be other patterns on them."
Zhou Yu usually wears Hanfu, and the most common thing he wears is a flying fish sticker. "Another difference between the sticker and the trolling is that there will be 'horns' on both sides of the hem of the trolling, like two small wings, which is used to avoid the leakage of the inner clothes and lose the elegance. Therefore, it still needs to be sorted out when wearing trolling, which is not as convenient as sticking. For Chen Xuefei, he prefers to wear trolling, because the "horse face" with a smooth hem will make it more comfortable when sitting. Whether it is Tieli or Trolling, they call this kind of clothing "sportswear in Hanfu", and they are more suitable for sports than Taoist robes with wide robes and large sleeves. Chen Xuefei will wear it on some special festivals to shoot arrows or ride horses. Zhou Yu showed me a video of dancing the sword in the sticker, and the hem in the sticker rotated and flew, looking chic and free.
Young writers Zhou Yu (left) and Hou Jiaming (right) both wear Ming Hanfu. Men's clothing: Ming Dynasty military military sleeves wearing method; Women's clothing: big red python robe with green python skirt, referring to the old Tibetan costumes of Confucius (photo by Huang Yu)
After many years of making stickers and trolling, Chen Xuefei is also adding other styles of clothes to the store, such as round-necked robes with complements, which is a new category. He told me that every time he looked at the materials of those Ming Dynasty costumes, he would have some new production ideas. In the treasure trove of Ming Dynasty clothing, there are still too many shapes and patterns that have not been recognized by Hanfu lovers.