China Popular Itineraries |
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1.2 The Characteristics of Ancient Chinese Dress Culture |
There have been different customs between men's dress and women's dress in China. In remote ages, there was little difference between them. It was only after the Han Dynasty when men wore trousers and women wore skirts, that the difference between men' s and women' s dress became gradual-ly obvious. In the following dynasties, situation varied. But if people disre-garded the sexual distinction of dress, they would be reproached by the com-mon people.
There was a saying in ancient China "Children shouldn't wear gowns, for "gowns will cause inconvenience" (The Book of Rites ). Children under the age of ten usually wore coat and split pants. Different age groups also had different dress colors and styles. Senior citizens in children's clothes or youth in old people's clothes were not be socially approved.
Clothes had become a distinct symbol of professions as different clothes corresponded with different careers in ancient China. Especially the differ-ences between civil and military officials -- civil-offcial wore long gowns, black gauze caps, military officials wore helmets and armours. Since the Song Dynasty, different trades wore different clothes, and it was strictly stipulated in the Song Dynasty.
Naturally, there was also mix-up of career garments such as Diao Chan Hat. It used to be the helmet of military officials with cicada and marten tail as ornaments. Handed down from the Warring States Period to the Ming Dy-nasty, it had a history of 1,800 years. But during this period, dukes, minis-ters, even eunuches began to wear it and finally mixed up its career character-istics. The idiom "A dog' s tail in the disguise of a marten' s" was derived from it, as recorded in The Book of the Jin Dynasty.
Originally, dress did not symbolize social status, but the situation changed after class polarization. In feudal society, dress had a distinct charac-teristic of social status, as testified by the above mentioned, "Nobles wore coronets, common people wore ze (man's headdress used in ancient China)." Later, nomenclatures such as official dress, xiu cai (one who passed the im-perial examination at the county level) dress and cotton clothes appeared to stand for officials, scholars and common people. In A Dream of the Red Mansions, there were different regulations on the dress of different people.
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