April 20, Beijing, China, National Museum of China/中国国家博物馆 (Part 3 – Chinese Historical Fashion Exhibition):
Another cool exhibition that I visited while at the museum, showcasing popular fashion from different dynasties, historical artifacts, and some other relevant artifacts that gave a glimpse into the fashion of different dynasties. What’s even cooler is that you can visit this exhibition virtually! (the site is in Chinese but I highly recommend it to everyone, there’s so much more to the exhibition than the pictures I post here) Note that this exhibition does not only include historical hanfu, but also historical fashion of the 少数民族 that ruled some of the dynasties. This post will be pre-Ming fashion, and next post will be Ming and Qing era fashion. The reason is because Ming and Qing dynasties are the two most recent dynasties, so there are a lot of surviving artifacts from these two dynasties, which means there are 30+ pictures total and I couldn’t fit them all into a single post.
First is a recreation of Han-era (202 BC - 220 AD) hanfu. The woman on the left is wearing a one-piece robe called a qujushenyi/曲裾深衣. The man on the right is wearing the outfit characteristic of Eastern Han dynasty (25 - 220 AD) civil officials, a combo of jinxianguan/进贤冠 hat and zaochaofu/皂朝服 clothing (皂 here means the color black, as in the word “青红皂白”, or “blue and red, black and white”):
Left: model of a Han-era magpie tail cap/queweiguan/鹊尾冠 (you can see the influence of these Han-era men’s hats on the outfits of male characters in modern xianxia art). Right: recreation of a Han-era bian/弁 hat (the headscarf-like piece tied beneath the chin):
Line drawings of different hats worn by different types of officials based on artifacts and murals. The center and left sections are different hats of military officials (wuguan/武官 in Chinese), and the right section is different hat styles of civil officials (wenguan/文官 in Chinese).
Jumping back, this is a Warring States period (476 - 221 BC) iron daigou/带钩 inlaid with gold and jade and decorated with dragons. Daigou are basically belt buckles where the flat end is attached to one end of the belt, and the hook will hook into slits in the other end of the belt, so this is an extra fancy belt buckle:
On to Tang-era (618 - 907 AD) hanfu. From the left to right these are: the regular outfit of early Tang dynasty officials (color varies by rank, red is worn by fourth and fifth rank officials), the outfit of a female servant in early to mid Tang era, the ceremonial outfit of a Tang dynasty emperor, and the outfit of noblewomen in late Tang to Five Dynasties era (907 - 960 AD):
Song-era hanfu (front two) and Yuan-era Mongolian fashion (back two). Front left is the formal attire of Southern Song dynasty (1127 - 1279) civil officials (color varies by rank, red is worn by fourth and fifth rank officials), and front right is the regular outfit of women in Southern Song dynasty. Back left is the formal attire of Mongolian noblewomen in Yuan dynasty (1271 - 1368), and back right is the regular outfit of Mongolian men in Yuan dynasty.
Replicas of painted clay sculptures of women from Northern Song dynasty (960 - 1127), the original sculptures are in Hall of the Holy Mother/圣母殿 of Jinci Temple/晋祠 in Shanxi province:
By the way, in the case of Song dynasty, the descriptor “northern” and “southern” basically indicate time periods within Song dynasty (you can refer to the beginning of this post where I explain this in more detail).
And line drawing diagrams of different styles of futou/幞头 hats in Song dynasty based on paintings, murals, and other artifacts:
April 20, Beijing, China, National Museum of China/中国国家博物馆 (Part 3 – Chinese Historical Fashion Exhibition):
Another cool exhibition that I visited while at the museum, showcasing popular fashion from different dynasties, historical artifacts, and some other relevant artifacts that gave a glimpse into the fashion of different dynasties. What’s even cooler is that you can visit this exhibition virtually! (the site is in Chinese but I highly recommend it to everyone, there’s so much more to the exhibition than the pictures I post here) Note that this exhibition does not only include historical hanfu, but also historical fashion of the 少数民族 that ruled some of the dynasties. This post will be pre-Ming fashion, and next post will be Ming and Qing era fashion. The reason is because Ming and Qing dynasties are the two most recent dynasties, so there are a lot of surviving artifacts from these two dynasties, which means there are 30+ pictures total and I couldn’t fit them all into a single post.
First is a recreation of Han-era (202 BC - 220 AD) hanfu. The woman on the left is wearing a one-piece robe called a qujushenyi/曲裾深衣. The man on the right is wearing the outfit characteristic of Eastern Han dynasty (25 - 220 AD) civil officials, a combo of jinxianguan/进贤冠 hat and zaochaofu/皂朝服 clothing (皂 here means the color black, as in the word “青红皂白”, or “blue and red, black and white”):
Left: model of a Han-era magpie tail cap/queweiguan/鹊尾冠 (you can see the influence of these Han-era men’s hats on the outfits of male characters in modern xianxia art). Right: recreation of a Han-era bian/弁 hat (the headscarf-like piece tied beneath the chin):
Line drawings of different hats worn by different types of officials based on artifacts and murals. The center and left sections are different hats of military officials (wuguan/武官 in Chinese), and the right section is different hat styles of civil officials (wenguan/文官 in Chinese).
Jumping back, this is a Warring States period (476 - 221 BC) iron daigou/带钩 inlaid with gold and jade and decorated with dragons. Daigou are basically belt buckles where the flat end is attached to one end of the belt, and the hook will hook into slits in the other end of the belt, so this is an extra fancy belt buckle:
On to Tang-era (618 - 907 AD) hanfu. From the left to right these are: the regular outfit of early Tang dynasty officials (color varies by rank, red is worn by fourth and fifth rank officials), the outfit of a female servant in early to mid Tang era, the ceremonial outfit of a Tang dynasty emperor, and the outfit of noblewomen in late Tang to Five Dynasties era (907 - 960 AD):
Song-era hanfu (front two) and Yuan-era Mongolian fashion (back two). Front left is the formal attire of Southern Song dynasty (1127 - 1279) civil officials (color varies by rank, red is worn by fourth and fifth rank officials), and front right is the regular outfit of women in Southern Song dynasty. Back left is the formal attire of Mongolian noblewomen in Yuan dynasty (1271 - 1368), and back right is the regular outfit of Mongolian men in Yuan dynasty.
Replicas of painted clay sculptures of women from Northern Song dynasty (960 - 1127), the original sculptures are in Hall of the Holy Mother/圣母殿 of Jinci Temple/晋祠 in Shanxi province:
By the way, in the case of Song dynasty, the descriptor “northern” and “southern” basically indicate time periods within Song dynasty (you can refer to the beginning of this post where I explain this in more detail).
And line drawing diagrams of different styles of futou/幞头 hats in Song dynasty based on paintings, murals, and other artifacts:
