唐朝半臂/半袖 Tang dynasty men’s half-sleeve shirt are beautiful, the patterns are absolutely gorgeous 😍 The style of the shirt is similar to the ru tops (襦) in the Weijin Dynasty, but the sleeves are not full length, and the patterns of the fabric and the material itself are different.
I just want to say, before anything else, that I love your blog! It's so helpful to me when I write things. I'm also sorry for how long this ask is going to be. I normally ask anonymously but it won't let me put the photo in.
I really like this hanfu set but I don't know exactly what dynasty it's from, or even if it's actually historically accurate.
I also wanted to ask about the hanfu from Flourished Peony, and how accurate they are. Specifically that one pink round-collar hanfu Mudan wears when she's getting flowers from the mountain that I thought was a men's item, rather than a women's one.
Going to answer both of these together since they’re about the same show.
About the hanfu in the picture, this is a Ruqun (襦裙) set from the Weijin. The biggest giveaway is the stripe at the sleeves (it looks like 2 stripes but I have another pic of this outfit and you can see it’s actually 1 decorative stripe with two bright borders). Also, if you look at this pic below with it untucked in the skirt, you can kind of see that there’s a horizontal piece of fabric along the waist area.
If you take a look at my post about the Ruqun (here) you’ll see an artefact that’s very similar.
For Flourished peony, I’m only going to comment on the hanfu as I don’t have enough knowledge about Tang dynasty hair or makeup right now to make any judgements. I’m also not looking at the patterns on the fabrics, I’m literally only looking at the styles of the clothing themselves.
Disclaimer, I haven’t watched the show. These photos are from Google and Baidu promotional pics, and I did click through a few eps to take screencaps.
And if anyone has a screencap of, or can let me know which episode, the “pink round-collar hanfu Mudan wears” that’s mentioned in the ask I’d really appreciate it (I tried looking for it but couldn’t find it T__T)
Looking briefly through some of the posts regarding this show, it seems the production team put a lot of effort into recreating the Tang Dynasty aesthetic, from costumes to props (there are some people who have found props and matched them to museum pieces). For the most part, the clothing seems appropriate for the time period, the only nitpick I’ll do is that it seems to mix together clothing styles from early Tang all the way to late Tang (but the show isn’t set in a specific period of the Tang Dynasty, so they can kind of get away with that).
Most of the men seem to wear the round-collar robes that was most common during the Tang Dynasty (my post on it here).
This style of qixiong dress (over-bust dress) seems to be most common in this show, and definitely a staple for women’s hanfu during the Tang Dynasty.
If you look at the width of her sleeve here, it doesn’t appear very wide. Sleeve width became wider and wider during the Tang Dynasty, so looking at these sleeves it seems more early-going-into-Gold-era Tang (my post on Gold-era Tang hanfu here).
This style looks more early-Tang with the very form-fitted sleeve and the non-qixiong skirt. I can’t see clearly the pattern of her dress here, but early Tang skirts often had alternating coloured blocks on their skirts (called jianqun/间裙子)(my post on early Tang here and here).
I can’t tell clearly if this dress is a qixiong dress, or a hezi dress. Hezi dresses so far are not backed by any artefacts, there are rumours of its existence but nothing has been unearthed to verify it (someone asked me about this, I posted on it here).
Looking at the long outer robe with the wide sleeve, even if this was a qixiong dress, this would be late Tang, edging into the Five Dynasties post-Tang (my post on this here).
Disclaimer: The following styles and their definitions were observed by me and are not authoritative. I am only familiar with Hanfu and if I made mistakes and picked the wrong photo examples or fraud shops, please let me know. Also, this post focused on women’s fashion because 1. I am not into men’s fashion so I don’t know much about them. 2. The algorithm also knew that so I don’t really see them.
Hii! I love your blog and especially the artwork you make for the explanation of the various types of clothing. I was wondering, seeing your last Tang dynasty posts - for the patterns on clothing, do you use your personal made brushes and would you be willing to share? If not, that's perfectly fine! I just found them really nice ^^
April 13, Xi'an, China, Shaanxi Archaeology Museum/陕西考古博物馆 (Part 5 - Tang dynasty, Song dynasty, and later):
Happy Mid-Autumn to everyone!
First up is again an undisputed star of the museum, the gold crown of Li Zhui/李倕. Li Zhui was the 5th generation descendant of Li Yuan/李渊, aka Emperor Gaozong of Tang, the first emperor of Tang dynasty (618 - 907 AD). It’s speculated that this crown was what the Tang-era term “轻金冠” (lit. “light gold crown”) was referring to. The crown itself wasn’t just gold, however, it also had parts of silver, copper, and iron, decorated with pearls, mother of pearl, agate, turquoise, rubies, amber, ivory, and glass.
And it wasn’t just a crown either. There were other pieces that were part of her outfit:
Various Tang-era gold and silver thread embroidery pieces found in the crypt of Famen Temple/法门寺, the plaque is visible in many of these so I won’t be naming them all. There’s a saying among Chinese archaeologists: “dry things last a thousand years, wet things last ten-thousand years, half-wet half-dry things last half a year” (“干千年，湿万年，不干不湿就半年”). This refers to the conditions the artifacts/remains were in over time, stable conditions usually preserve artifacts and remains better than changing conditions. Fabric-based artifacts are notoriously hard to preserve, especially in Xi'an’s “half-wet half-dry” climate, so these are a rare sight:
Note that the bird and flower design on the right is actually not an embroidery, but designs woven straight into the fabric:
The gold threads used in these embroideries were made by wrapping long strips of gold foil around thread through the turning of these hook-shaped tools.
The gold threads produced from the above process were mainly used in two ways, either woven into the fabric (top), or embroidered onto fabric (bottom). The kind of embroidery here is called cujinxiu/蹙金绣, which uses gold threads and a technique that is similar to couching
Models of the microscopic structure of different types of silk fabric found in Famen Temple. In common usage today, the term sha/纱 often refers to light, almost see-through polyester fabrics, but in the past this term refers exclusively to a type of light silk fabric. However, the other ones listed here (ling/绫, luo/罗, juan/绢, jin/锦) almost always refer to silk fabrics.
Different types of motifs/patterns found on artifacts throughout time. Left is the evolution of juancaowen/卷草纹 (“curled plant motif”) from Tang dynasty to Jin dynasty (1115 - 1234). Right is the evolution of lianhuawen/莲花纹 (“lotus flower motif”) from Northern Song dynasty (960 - 1127) to Yuan dynasty (1206 - 1368).
Left: evolution of juhuawen/菊花纹 (“chrysanthemum flower motif”) from Tang dynasty to Yuan dynasty. Right: evolution of mudanwen/牡丹纹 (“moutan peony motif”) from Tang dynasty to Yuan dynasty, and the evolution of youyuwen/游鱼纹 (“swimming fish motif”) from Northern Song dynasty to Yuan dynasty.
This is another one of my personal favorites, a Ming dynasty (1368 - 1644) bronze vessel with cloisonné enamel (called 掐丝珐琅 or jingtailan/景泰蓝 in Chinese). This type of vessel is called a gui/簋.
Song-era green-glazed porcelain from Yaozhou Kiln Site (耀州窑), so it’s called yaoci/耀瓷 for short. This particular style is made by carving designs onto the piece before glazing and firing. I have attempted something similar when I took that wheelthrowing class years ago, but I failed lol
A Northern Song-era stone dui/敦 from the tomb of Lü Dalin/吕大临. The calligraphy here is in kaishu/楷书 script.
Also from the tomb of Lü Dalin, the left is a wine flagon with a dedicated holder used to warm the entire vessel along with the wine inside. The right is a incense burner with a swastika on top. Note that swastikas are very common in Chinese Buddhism, and is taken to mean “myriad” or “infinity” (the swastika is pronounced wan/萬, which literally means “ten-thousand”, the figurative way of saying “infinity” in Chinese).
The process of making tea in Song dynasty, called diancha/点茶, which generally involves these steps: grinding the tea into a powder, sifting the tea powder, putting tea powder into a tea cup, pouring in hot water, and whisking the tea with a chaxian/茶筅 to create a light foam before drinking. In Song dynasty, the literati would hold contests among themselves to see who could make the perfect tea using the diancha method. This complex and time/effort consuming method was gradually phased out within China by the time of Ming dynasty, but deeply influenced Japanese tea making methods.
Left: a small porcelain piece depicting a mother lion and cub. The Chinese depiction of lions, called shi/狮, largely comes from a combination of the mythological suanni/狻猊, and the rare real lions that were given to China as gifts in the past. Right: a pottery dragon from Yuan dynasty, if I remembered correctly.
Also the previous part on Han dynasty (202 BC - 220 AD) artifacts was getting way too long, so I put these two pictures here at the end. In ancient China, many round coins had a square hole in the middle, and these holes were used to string the coins up for easier storage and counting. Such strings of coins are called minqian/缗钱, and this is why the quantifier for coins in ancient China is usually chuan/串, guan/贯, or diao/吊. In usage, chuan is not a strict quantifier, but 1 guan or diao = 1000 coins.
A modern recreation of a Han-era painted lacquer box, this red pattern on black background look is very characteristic of Han-era painted lacquerware:
Painted pottery statue of a Buddhist deva:
The painted wall murals of a Yuan dynasty tomb, viewed from below:
And this concludes the posts for Shaanxi Archaeology Museum! The next museum (also the last one) will be Shaanxi History Museum, specifically the new Qin-Han dynasties museum.
Space buns are very popular right now but they look like Odango hairstyle, but I heard that 牛角头 actually originated from China?? Are hairstyles an important part in the Hanfu movement.
Hi, thanks for the question, and sorry for taking ages to reply!
The double bun hairstyle you’re referring to has a long history in China, where it goes by several different names (depending on the specific style). It is most commonly know as Shuang Ya Ji/双丫髻 (lit. “double maiden bun”), so-called because it was mainly worn by girls & unmarried women. It was also worn by young boys, maids, and dancers. It is a hairstyle associated with youth. Niu Jiao Tou/牛角头 (lit. “ox horn head”) is a type of double bun hairstyle, but its shape is more angular and pointed. You can read more on the history and different types of double bun hairstyles here and here.
Below - Tang dynasty artifact depicting a maiden with a double bun hairstyle. Note the cute flower ornament on each bun! (x):
The hairstyle is still commonly worn today, mainly by young girls for festive occasions. Below - young girls in hanfu with double bun hairstyles:
As for your second question - yes, hairstyles are definitely an important part of the hanfu revival movement! After all, you can’t revive hanfu without also reviving the hairstyles to wear with it. The hanfu movement isn’t only about reviving clothing - it also involves reviving hairstyles, makeup, accessories, art, customs, etiquette, etc. And out of all of these, I’d say hairstyles get the second most amount of attention after clothing.
Hope this helps!
Is this the same hairstyle as 冲天揪？
Hi! Yes, I’d say Chong Tian Jiu/冲天鬏 is another one of the many names for this type of double bun hairstyle. Baidu’s encyclopedia names Chinese folk deity Nezha and Street Fighter’s Chun-Li as examples of well-known depictions of the chongtianjiu hairstyle:
Update: Wanted to add that there’s another type of double-bun hairstyle (which I briefly mentioned here) called bang zhu tou/蚌珠头, which literally means “clam pearl head”. Bangzhutou was popular during the mid-to-late Qing dynasty into the early Republican era. The hairstyle consists of one or two buns tied on either side of the head. The buns were typically decorated with beads and flowers, resembling clams with pearls, hence the name. Bangzhutou was mostly worn by young girls who hadn’t reached the age of marriage. (Source)
Below - historical art and photos of bangzhutou (1/2/3):
Below - bangzhutou in historical Chinese films/dramas (1/2):
If a double-bun hairstyle has round buns that are more horizontally oriented on the head and have some kind of bead/pearl ornaments, I’d say it’s most likely bangzhutou (or inspired by it).
The basic types of skirts in Chinese Hanfu: ↑Po Qun破裙, also known as Jiaoyu Qun交窬裙, was one of the primary skirt styles worn by women in historical China. Its distinctive feature is that it is sewn together from multiple trapezoidal fabric panels, creating a unique patchwork effect. This style dates back to the Warring States period, with the earliest known example being a plain silk skirt unearthed from a Chu tomb at Mashan in Jiangling. It gained popularity starting from the Han Dynasty (202 BC–220 AD) and Jin Dynasty (266–420 AD) and continued to be worn into the Tang Dynasty (618–907 AD). “Jiaoyu” refers to a cutting technique that uses right-angled trapezoidal panels. This method is documented in the Qin-era bamboo slip text Zhiyi (“Garment Making”), held by Peking University, which provides details for its reconstruction. Poqun bears some resemblance to a modern A-line skirt, making it easier to integrate into contemporary fashion. Many people now incorporate Poqun into their outfits by mixing it with modern clothing pieces.↑
↑Jianse Qun间色裙(Alternating-color Qun) is a type of Po Qun distinguished by its construction, which involves splicing together strips of fabric in two or more alternating colors. Jianse Qun originated in the Wei and Jin Dynasties (220–420 AD) and reached its peak during the Sui and Tang Dynasties (581–907 AD), becoming a popular garment for women at the time. It typically featured two alternating colors, though combinations of three or more were also used. The skirt was characterized by a wide hem, formed by joining multiple panels of fabric—the more panels (or “breaks," pò), the wider the skirt. During the Tang Dynasty, broad and long skirts were fashionable, with most skirts made from six panels of cloth. When worn, Jianse Qun was wrapped around the body with a certain amount of overlap. Common variations seen today include the Eight-Pò Skirt, Twelve-Pò Skirt, as well as more complex versions like the Thirty-Six-Pò Skirt and Forty-Eight-Pò Skirt.↑
↑Xuanqun旋裙 (Whirling Skirt) was a popular women’s skirt style in the Song Dynasty (960–1279 AD), also known as the "Two-Panel Skirt” or “Open-Hip Skirt.” It is considered a classic example of Hanfu that balances functionality and aesthetics in historical China.
Structurally, the skirt is made by cutting and sewing four fabric pieces into two main panels. These panels are not sewn together along their length but instead overlap only at the waistband, creating front and back open sections known as the “overlapping hip panels.”
Every two pieces are first sewn vertically into a block. Three such blocks are then arranged with the middle one wider than the two on the sides, overlapping vertically in an offset manner. The top edge is sewn together, while the hem remains unstitched, allowing the two skirt layers to move and separate freely. A separate waistband is added at the top, with ties attached at both ends for fastening.↑
↑Sanjian Qun三裥裙(Three-Pleat Skirt) rose to prominence during the Song Dynasty (960–1279 AD). Its full name, “Four-Panel Three-Pleat Skirt” (四破三裥裙), refers to its construction from four square pieces of fabric skillfully joined together—hence the term “four-panel” (si po). The “three-pleat” element describes the three distinct pleats, each arranged in a box-pleat style and positioned at the top section of the skirt. These pleats could either be sewn down or left unstitched for movement.
This design has been verified through artifacts excavated from the tomb of Lady Zhou of the Song Dynasty in De'an, Jiangxi Province. ↑
↑Mamianqun马面裙 (Horse-Face Skirt), which evolved from the Whirling Skirt of the Song Dynasty (960–1279 AD), became the dominant style of women’s skirts during the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644 AD). The skirt consists of several components: the waistband, skirt panels, decorative borders, and patterned ornaments.
The waistband is typically made of white fabric and fastened with cords or buttons. Decorative motifs are primarily concentrated around the skirt’s lower section, frequently depicting flora and fauna that convey auspicious wishes. The most distinctive feature of Mamian Qun is that it appears extremely narrow from the side, while the front and back have rectangular, flat panel sections.↑
↑Manzhe Qun满褶裙(Full-pleated skirts) had already appeared in the Tang Dynasty. A one-piece pleated skirt excavated from the Famen Temple existed alongside the Jiaoyu skirt. By Song Dynasty, the one-piece pleated skirt had become very popular, with increasingly diverse styles. Compared to Tang skirts, those of the Song Dynasty used more fabric panels and featured finer, denser pleats. The full-pleated skirt had no front panel and was entirely covered in uniform pleats. In the Ming Dynasty, Manzhe Qun was also highly popular and, like the Mamian Qun, became a basic style for daily wear.
As recorded in the Song text Qingyi Lu: “During the Tongguang era, the emperor ascended the Xingping Pavilion at dusk, admired the charming colors of the sunset, and ordered the dyeing workshop to create gauze in sunset hues, which was then made into thousand-pleated skirts and bestowed upon palace ladies. From then on, the style became popular among the common people."↑
↑Baidie Qun百迭裙 (Hundred-Fold Skirt) was one of the most common skirts in the Song Dynasty, wearable by both men and women. Designed as a one-piece garment, it features pleats in the middle section and flat panels on both sides, with all pleats facing the same direction. It offers versatile styling—the flat panel can be worn at the front or the back. In contrast, the Mamian Qun is designed to be worn only with the flat panel positioned at the front and back. (cr 糖叔)↑
This is a simple demonstration include jiaoyuqun(poqun), manzhequn, jianse poqun, baidiequn, qixiong poqun, qixiong zhequn:
