Different Kinds of Ancient Clothes
2 min readSince remote ages,people usually wore different clothes on different occasions. So far as individual clothes was concerned,there were civilian clothes,working suit,ceremonial dress.And there were different ceremonial dress on different ceremonial occasions-such as wedding dress,mourning apparel,etc.Different clothes were also worn in different weathers such as umbrella,parasols,alpine rush rain capes and bamboo hats.The dress custom defined by different occasions also restrained people’s behavior in their daily life.
If people wore inappropriate,they might incurs blames for their inconsistency with customs.Changes occurred to the uses of this dress,such as a special rain cape and bamboo hats called suoyi and douil.The former used to be a rainproof cape,but later as it was mainly worn by fishermen,it gradually evolved into the career symbol of fishermen.The latter used to be a heat stroke proof utensils,later it was also used for rainproof.
Clothes and Wearer’s Position
Clothing in ancient China told something about the wearer’s position in their daily life.The color,fabric,and jewelry all had a meaning to the person.Also the type of jewelry a person wore showed what position they had in society.High ranking people wore the finest silk in public.Peasants wore a long,shirt like garment madeof hemp fiber.Hemp is a rough fabric that is made of plant fibers.
A man wore a hat in public almost always.The hat showed the man’s job and status in society.Fashions for the rich changed as the years went by,but the poor still had to wear the same clothing until recently.Women’s long hair had to be put in a knot type bun thing that the Chinese called a topknot that was held in place by hair pins and other fancy hair ornaments.Also the wealthiest women wore very elaborate makeup.