2014年3月18日星期二

Woman's costume in the Tang Dynasty (3)


Women’s dresses is the most outstanding garments in this great period of prosperity, complimented by elaborate hairstyles, ornaments and face makeup. 

In general, the Tang women's dresses can be classified into three categories:
The traditional Ruqun or double layered or padded short jacket that was typical of central China; the Hu Fu, or alien dress that came from the Silk Road; as well as the full set of male garments that broke the tradition of the Confucian formalities.



























Ruqun is made up of the top jacket and long gown and a skirt on the bottom. The Tang women inherited this traditional style and developed it further, opening up the collar as far as exposing the cleavage between the breasts. This was unheard of and unimaginable in the previous dynasties, in which women had to cover their entire body according to the Confucian classics. But the new style was soon embraced by the open-minded aristocratic women of the Tang Dynasty.











From those pictures we can see the long-sleeve gauze robe was a typical outdoor outfit in the Tang Dynasty and was very fashionable among feudal gentlewomen. The hairdo was a unique Tang style, hair piled high, decorated with large flowers and flowery hairpins or an up swept hairdo, crowned with a chignon and adorned with flower hairpins completed the look.

Seeing these dresses might give people the idea that people back then had a very liberal view of fashion, because the costumes revealed a bit of skin. We can imagine that well-off Tang Dynasty women must have looked very beautiful in these dresses. Tang dynasty women opposed to traditional ideas and dare to fight for the fashion they like. And their lives, compared to those of today's women, weren't as mechanical, tense and full of pressure.




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