Ancient Chinese Clothing

BY: ZACHARY MORGAN GREENBERG

What They Wore

 In ancient China, both men and women wore tunics. However, they wore them in different ways. Men wore tunics down to their knees and women wore their tunics down to the ground. All people wore jackets when it was cold and in the winter when it was really cold they would wear padded jackets for extra warmth.

Poor people were forced by the Emperor to wear only solid black or solid blue. Also they were forced to make their cloths out of hemp and ramie. Common people sometimes wore brighter colors like red to represent the color of blood as it was a symbol of life and happiness, wealth, fame and good luck.

 

 Poor people

Rich people could wear mixed colors like a purple tunic and a blue belt. The wealthy would wear colored tunics that represent the seasons like red represents summer, black represents winter, green represents spring and white represents autumn. Wearing dark colors together with bright colored designs meant tragedy.

Rich people

Materials

In early China, poor people wore hemp and ramie because that is all they could afford. Rich people wore silk because it was the law and they could afford it. In the Yuan dynasty, Mongols introduced cotton to China. The Mongol invasion of the early 1200’s destroyed a lot of the mulberry trees that were needed to make silk. Something was needed to fill the gap from what was missing. At first, nobody liked cotton. Poor people then decided they liked cotton more than hemp and ramie because it was warmer, softer and cheaper. It could also be made thick for the fall and winter and thin for the spring and summer. Farmers didn’t know how to grow cotton, they only knew how to grow silk. Special training centers were opened in 1218 AD to teach them how to grow cotton. Farmers who could grow cotton well paid lower taxes to the Emperor. 

Binding Feet

  In the Sung Dynasty around 1100 A.D, a fashion trend started at the women’s court for women to bind their feet. Chinese women of this time felt that it was beautiful to have tiny feet—only about 3 inches long. To do this, they wrapped tight bandages around little girls’ toes when they were about 5 or 6 years old. The bandages were so tight that it would bend the toes under their feet and soon break the little girls toes. The little girls would cry for 2 or 3 years and then their feet stopped hurting so much. It was hard to walk on bound feet and often when they had to work in the fields they crawled instead.