Manchu women wore robes instead of skirts,and robes were their common daily dresser.     Imperial women of Qing Dynasty wearing different styles of daily dresses. An image of Han lady in the Qing Dynasty wearing a robe, skirt and waistcoat. At the end of 19th century,some open-minded officials sent their daughters to study in Europe and America.

   Manchu people's life environment, production mode and life style had changed dramatically since they crossed the Great Wall from Northeast, settled in the middle land of China, took control of the national power and founded the Qing Dynasty. Manchu traditional costumes, which are designed to facilitate riding and shooting, are very different from the Han nationality's costumes. In order to exterminate the Han people's national consciousness, the rulers of the Qing Dynasty forbid the Han people to wear Han costumes with strict order and forced them to take off their dajin (a style of clothes which button to the left and with overlapping front garment pieces) coats and robes, skirts and trousers and put on Manchu collarless duijin (a style of clothes with buttons in the middle) coats, gowns and long trousers. One thing that irritated the Han people the most was the order to shave the forehead and leave a big pigtail at the back of the head according to the Manchu' tradition. Many Han people who insisted on the Ming's customs of wearing square scarf and refused to shave their hair were killed.

And this arose great discontentment among the Hans, so rebellions took place in some places. Some Han people would rather to have a shaven head as a monk. Some people painted a Ming's square scarf on their head to show their faithfulness to their homeland's traditional costumes. Some used words to show their inner hatred indirectly by naming themselves as shoufa, which means to keep their hair. This situation of severe rivalry forced the Qing government to adopt some relevant transient policies to ease up the governing crisis caused by the hair shaving and costumes change. Costumes of men, government officials, adults, Confucian scholars, prostitutes must follow the Manchu tradition; while women, yanmen runners, youngsters, children, monks, Taoists, and the costumes used in theater, funeral, wedding might follow the Han tradition. As a result, from the beginning to the midterm years of the Qing Dynasty, Manchu women differed greatly from the Han women in hairstyles, clothes and shoes.

   Manchu women didn't wear skirts but robes with trousers inside, which were their most common daily clothes. The ceremonial robes that Manchu lady wore were decorated with "horse hoof sleeves," complicated ornaments and accessories. There were two types of daily robes; the long shirt that one would wear separately and the cloak. The long shirt was round-neck, "button to the right side" style and long enough to reach feet with twisted garment pieces, straight clothes body and sleeves, edgings, five buttons and no vents. In terms of the sleeve, there were the ones with sleeves or without sleeves. And the materials used were mainly floss for embroidery, woven pattern fabrics and fabrics with golden thread.

The shirt was usually decorated by edgings. The cloak was worn outside the under linens with vents on both sides that reach the oxter and the top of the vent was decorated with cloud pattern. Mostly for formal occasions, cloaks were decorated with complicate and delicate edgings and patterns. As robes usually had no collars, noble ladies liked to wear a little scarf even when they were at home. In early times, robes were very loose-bodied, and then became tighter and tighter. Till the end of the Qing Dynasty, the underarm part of the robe was not very tight and the garment outline was basically flat and straight. Collars, sleeves and the garment pieces were decorated with wide lacework. The length of robe didn't change.

   Manchu women combed their hair into a flat chignon at the back with two horns supported by a hair board, which was also called "double horns hair style. "Very beautiful and unique, they often decorated hair with big flowers of vivid color or tassels. Manchu women originally didn't have the foot binding tradition. Their shoes are very characteristic. It is a style of shoes with a high heel in the middle of the sole. The wood heel is generally 3cm to 6cm, but some are even as high as 15 cm. The shape of wooden heel is like a flowerpot, so it is called "flower pot sole." if the shape of the heel is like a horse hoof, then it is called "horse hoof sole."

   The Han women in the early years of Qing Dynasty still maintained their two- piece dressing features by wearing upper coats and lower skirts separately. They usually wore coats and skirts with trousers inside. Those who wore trousers without the matching skirts outside were generally lowborn. Upper clothes, from inside to outside included belly-covers, undercoats, coats, waistcoats and cloaks etc. The backless belly-cover was hung around neck by a silver chain. Undercoats were usually made by silk, satin or soft cloth with vivid and bright colors such as pink, peach red, cerise or light green. For different seasons, there were unlined, lined, leather and cotton coats. Sleeves were rather tight in early times, and then gradually loosened, but till the end of the Qing, short and small style was once more popular. Waistcoats were mostly worn in cold days in spring and autumn. Cloaks were the clothes worn in cold weather when going outside. Cloaks of noble family were usually embroidered by colorful golden threads and decorated with all kinds of jewelries.

    There was a wide variety of types and styles of Han women's skirts, and this was well represented by the development and change in skirt fashion. In early years of the Qing Dynasty, the "moonlight skirt" was once very popular, which was made by ten pieces of cloth that was tucked into tens of pleats. Each pleat was in a different color and painted carefully. The color was light and elegant, like bright moon light. Another type was to use many colors in one pleat, like the moonlight halation. There was another type called the "Chinese ink painting skirt," which used cloth with simple but elegant background color. The cloth was then printed with pattern of scattered flowers. The skirt had the charm of the Chinese ink painting and looked very elegant. During the reign of Kangxi and Qianlong, the "phoenix tail skirt" prevailed. The outside of underskirt was decorated with narrow long ribbons made by all different colors of silk and satin. Each strip of ribbon was embroidered with different patterns, and both edges were decorated with golden threads or laces. The skirt looked very fancy and luxurious. This style of skirt was mostly for women from rich families, but normal family's women would try to buy one for their wedding occasion.

Since the middle period of the Qing Dynasty, people had exerted more creativity on the skirt design based on the previous skirt fashion. They tucked the cloth into very thin pleats. From the material object we could see today, there was one skirt with more than three hundred pleats. Tile skirt hem was embroidered with water pattern. The water pattern would be partly hidden and partly visible when its wearer started to walk, which made the skirt look very dazzling. Later, pleats were joined with silk threads, so that they could be tightened and loosened flexibly. The skirt looked like fish scale, so it was called the "fish scale pleated skirt." At the end of the Qing, there appeared skirts that were decorated with ribbons. The ribbon was cut into the shape of a sword, and its sharp corner was decorated with gold, silver and bronze bells. The skirt not only looked very fancy and dazzling, but also would make euphonious tinkled sound when its wearer walked around.

    In those years, there was a kind of beautiful ornament for lady garments. The ornament was put on shoulder parts, and the four corners in front, back and two shoulders were all made in the shape of cloud. As it was very similar to the Chinese lucky sign - ruyi, this type of ornament was called the "cloud shoulder." There were layers of tassels hung from the edges on this ornament. First appeared in the Tang Dynasty, but became popular in the Qing Dynasty, this type of ornaments was an indispensable part of wedding and ceremonial costumes.

    In middle and later years of the Qing Dynasty, there was no big difference between Manchu and Han women's daily clothes. Their common features were loose-bodied robes covering outside the standard Chinese slim and weak beautiful ladies with slopping shoulders, wasp waist, and flat chest. No bizarre dresses were allowed at that time.

    In early years of the Qing Dynasty, Han women's hairstyle was similar to the Ming Dynasty. They combed flat, low and fitted hair bun. Since middle years, they had started to imitate the Qing royal maid and considered high hair bun as fashionable. Till the end of the Qing Dynasty, round hair bun at the back of the head prevailed. Unmarried women wore long plaits or double horn buns or double whorl buns. Also in this period of time, originally a kind of young girl's hairstyle called "hair bang" - eyebrow- high short hair at forehead, was the rage for women of all ages.

   The Han women also liked to decorate their hair bun with flowers, with fresh flowers and kingfisher's feather the most fashionable. In wintertime, especially during the traditional Chinese New Year, women of different ages all liked to wear red or pink color silk flowers. These flowers were usually made into a certain pattern with lucky meaning. Women in the north liked to plug one or two silver hairpins in the hair buns and wear hair decorations made by fur in winter which had the double functions of keeping out the cold and decorating the hair. Women from the South liked to stick a delicate patterned wooden comb into hair horizontally. They often wore headscarves to shelter them from sunshine and wind, and head hoops in cold weather - a kind of head ornaments made by black velour or black satin that was wrapped around the head and tied at the back of the head with bands.

   The Han women started to bind their feet when they were four or five years old. Except those who were engaged in hard labor work, women with big feet couldn't find someone to marry no matter whether they were from noble or plebeian families. The undesirable custom of foot binding started as early as in the Song Dynasty. Small and pointed feet were considered to be the essential qualifications of a beautiful woman. Till the end of the Qing Dynasty, people with insight founded "No Foot binding Organization" in different provinces one after another. Under this movement of women liberation, women's feet were gradually set free.

   Maybe because Manchu people used to live a kind of nomadic life, Manchu people in the Qing Dynasty liked to gird many daily articles for use. Men carried glasses case, fan covers, snuff boxes, pipes, flint, moneybags, little walking sabers etc. around waist. Women also liked to carry small daily articles. They didn't always tie them around the belt, but girded strands of articles in the front piece of the garment, such as a toothpick, nipper and ear pick etc. Some women even carried more than ten pieces. Besides, they wore strands of flowers or handkerchiefs. More than that, they also wore all kinds of jewelry, such as earrings, arm bracelets, bracelets, finger rings, neck rings, bead strands made by gold, silver or jade. Even women from poor families liked to wear several pieces of silver ornaments.