Imperial Clothes and Culture

In Chinese feudal society the emperor was the supreme leader and all the people, mountains and rivers belonged to him. Emperors called themselves "sons of heaven," - they were thought to have been sent from above to manage the state.

The emperor had an obligation to offer sacrifices to heaven and earth during certain seasons, on certain dates, and to pray to heaven and earth for the peace of the state on particular occasions. Apart from worshipping the gods, he also granted titles to officials, rewarded ministers, dispatched generals, held wedding ceremonies, hunted, managed disaster relief work... in short, the emperor was responsible for everything and had to wear clothes appropriate to each function - he even had to wear "home clothes" while resting. Imperial clothes represented the state and power, so they had deterrent or appeasing effects. Imperial kinsmen, high officials and ministers attending various activities with the imperial family also wore certain clothes.

Amongst the Twenty-five Histories, comprising the Twenty-four Histories which are 24 history books written during various dynasties, from the time of the legendary

A crown robe for the emperors of the Han Dynasty

Yellow Emperor (2550 BC) to the end of the Ming Dynasty (1644), and the Draft History of Qing. Ten of the history books contain the chapter Records of Carriages and Clothing, describing a dynasty's rites, carriages, flags and clothes. There are strict provisions for the clothes that people of different classes should wear on different occasions. The emperor should wear the crown robe on formal occasions.

The crown robe included the crown, upper garment, lower garment, waistband, knee cover at the front, and shoes. There was a board on the crown called the tassel board, which was round at the front and square at the back. When it was placed on the head, the back was slightly higher, which made the crown slant forward. This is different from the crown in modern films and TV dramas about ancient China. Modern designers often raise the tassel board's front, perhaps to prevent the tassels from blocking the emperor's vision. Actually this was not the case in the past -the board was made to slant downwards to show that the emperor really cared for and respected his subjects. There were usually 12 strings of beads, or tassels, both in front of and behind the board.

Most tassels consisted of between 9 and 12 colorful jade beads strung onto a silk thread. Different ceremonies were associated with different levels of solemnity and different classes of people, and these things influenced how many tassels were worn. After being put onto the head, the tassel board was fixed by a hairpin traversing the hair between the two holes on the crown. There were also two small beads on the round band of the crown hanging above the wearer's ears, called tuokuang or ear fillers. The Chinese idiom "not hearing what fills the ears" came from these beads and they were supposed to remind the emperor not to readily believe in slanderous talk. Tuokuang also had a political significance in the same way that the tassel board was worn with the back placed higher than the front.

Most imperial clothes featured black upper garments and deep red lower garments. The clothes that people wear today also feature upper garments and lower garments - trousers or skirts and shirts - but in ancient times these items were referred to as upper garments and lower garments. Ancient Chinese people thought that upper garments and lower garments symbolized heaven and earth respectively and that this order could not be reversed. The crown robe also carried the two colors of black and deep red, symbolizing sky at night and the land at dusk. The tassel board reflected these beliefs and also had a black upper part and a deep red lower part.

The clothes worn by the emperor were called "dragon robes" and were often embroidered with curling dragon patterns. Imperial clothing and objects also featured 12 patterns, known as the 12 motifs. Ancient people also called patterns motifs. In The Book of Yu-Yi, Ji says, "I want to see ancient images, paint the sun, the moon, stars, mountains, dragons and pheasants on upper garments, embroider bronze sacrificial vessels in ancestral temples, water grass, fire, rice, axes and two beasts opposite each other and make colorful clothes. You should know this." This passage tells us that the ancient Chinese derived meaning from various things - astronomical phenomena, and the natural and artistic worlds around them -and embroidered or painted them on clothes. According to an ancient myth, there is a three-legged bird on the Sun and a white rabbit pounding medicine on the Moon, and stars form connecting lines in three circles. These three patterns represent light shining on Earth, signifying that the emperor shone on ordinary people like the Sun and the Moon. Mountains were embroidered because of their steadiness, meaning the emperor's position was as stable as Mount Tai and was unshakable. Dragons were embroidered because of their ability to summon wind and rain and to change continuously. Pheasants with colorful feathers were embroidered to show gorgeousness. The two bronze sacrificial vessels featured in Collected Illustrations of the Three Realms, painted by Wang Qi during the Ming Dynasty, are from ancestral temples, and are in the same style - one is carved with a tiger and the other is carved with a hanuman langur. The tiger is the king of the beasts, representing unrivalled valor. The hanuman langur puts its tail into its nostrils when it rains because rain can easily flow into the nostrils, so it is viewed as being very clever. So these animals represent valor and wisdom. Water grass is often washed in water and soaked in water and was embroidered because of its cleanness. Fire represented brightness and raging flames and was embroidered to represent this energy. White polished rice was embroidered to remind the emperor not to forget that ordinary people need to be fed and the imperial family need to be aware of this. Black-and-white axes were embroidered to manifest decisiveness - hacking with an ax with no hesitation. Two beasts appearing opposite each other represented the clear distinction between right and wrong.

The 12 motifs are the patterns most often represented on emperors' clothes but they could also be used on dukes' ceremonial dresses, but fewer motifs would be used, depending on rank and the solemnity of particular ceremonies.

A waistband would be tied between the upper and lower garments of the crown robe. The knee cover, an ornament made of leather, hung from the waistband. The knee cover first emerged when people wore animal skins to cover the front of the stomach and the genitals. After more sophisticated clothes were developed people still hung the knee cover in front of the belly as an important component of ceremonial dress. Later on the knee cover became an ornament that signified a noble person's importance - the emperor wore a knee cover that was purely red.

The shoes that were worn with the crown robe were either clogs or saddles. Clogs had a silk upper layer and two layers of wood to act as soles; saddles had a one-layer wooden sole and uppers made of kudzu hemp in the summer and animal skin in winter. The emperor wore red clogs at the most important ceremonies, white clogs at ceremonies of the lesser importance, and black clogs at ceremonies of the lowest importance. The empress wore black, green and red clogs at the three levels of ceremonies.

After the Han Dynasty, yellow gradually became the color of the emperor's clothes. The emperor's yellow clothes became a symbol of authority. According to the Chinese yin-yang theory and the five-element theory, the five elements of metal, wood, water, fire and earth promote and counteract each other. White represents metal, green represents wood, black represents water, red represents fire, and yellow represents earth. The Zhou Dynasty was thought to be favored by fire, so the clothes of the ruling class were red. The Qin Dynasty (221 BC-206 BC) replaced the Zhou Dynasty by virtue of water, so black was preferred, the supreme rulers' clothes were black, and the emperor and officials all wore black clothes. The Han Dynasty replaced the Qin Dynasty by virtue of earth, so emperors of the Han Dynasty wore yellow clothes.

Potraits of a Qing empeor and an imperial concubine (Potraits of Qing Emperors and Empresses, forme the collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing)

In the Chinese five-element theory, certain animals represent compass points: the green dragon marks the east, the white tiger marks the west, the red finch marks the south and the tortoise marks the north. Thus, the central area is yellow. The Han Dynasty implemented a unified centralism, so the emperor wore yellow clothes. However, when the emperor first wore yellow clothes, officials and ordinary people could wear yellow clothes as well. During the Tang Dynasty the imperial court ordered that, apart from the emperor, officials and ordinary people were not allowed to wear yellow clothes. In 959 AD, the last emperor of the Later Zhou Dynasty died and his young son ascended the throne. The following year officers and soldiers commanded by General Zhao Kuangyin, who was in control of the military, draped an imperial yellow robe over his shoulders and declared him emperor. Thus the Song Dynasty was founded.

The rule that only emperors could wear yellow clothes lasted from the Tang Dynasty to the last Chinese dynasty. At the age of 11 Dynasty, saw that his eight-year-old cousin's clothes had a yellow silk lining. He seized his cousin's sleeve and said, "How dare you wear yellow clothes?" Even though Puyi had been deprived of imperial power, he still thought that yellow clothing represented his supreme authority and should be worn by him alone.

Throughout Chinese feudal society, the most prominent imperial clothes were embroidered dragon robes. During the Ming and Qing dynasties it was felt that nine dragons should be embroidered on these robes - a total of eight dragons were placed on the outside of the robe, one on each two shoulder, one on each of the two sleeves, and four symmetrically placed in other positions. The ninth dragon was embroidered inside the front of the robe, with the buttons to the right. Images of emperors wearing robes with four-dragon patterns and eight-dragon patterns can be seen in Portraits of Past Emperors. Among them, Emperor Xuanzong of the Ming Dynasty wears a winged round crown and a dragon robe with 12 dragons and the 12 motifs, with a jade band around his waist and shoes with white soles on his feet. This clothing is representative of Han emperors.

There was also a typical model of clothing for the empresses. This was known as the "phoenix coronet and glowing cape". Four phoenix coronets were excavated from the Ding Tomb of the Ming Dynasty in Beijing. These phoenix coronets display gold threads inlaid with jewels. A crown woven with gold threads was also unearthed; the phoenix coronet belonging to Xiaojing, the Wanli Emperor's wife, is 27 centimeters tall, 23.7 centimeters in diameter, and weighs 2,300 grams. Wanli's coronet bears clusters of gold, silver and jewels, and depicts nine gold dragons on the front, each holding a bead in its mouth. Gold phoenixes with kingfisher feathers sit below the dragons, and another phoenix can be seen on the back of the coronet. Raised green leaves arranged in the style of fans hang on both sides of the back of the coronet, with kingfisher feathers and inlaid gold dragons in addition to jewels and flower decorations of various colors. This coronet epitomizes the magnificence of clothing for an empress.

The "glowing cape" evolved from capes of the Tang Dynasty. "Glowing" refers to the cape being as bright as the rosy clouds of dawn. The glowing cape of the ceremonial dress of Ming empresses was in the shape of a scarf, and became as broad as a vest during the Qing Dynasty. The cape is embroidered with various propitious patterns and decorated with tassels. Some capes have gold and silver "glowing cape pendants." A Ming glowing cape in the shape of a gallbladder was uncovered in Anhui Province. It is engraved with phoenix and cloud patterns and has a gold hood at the top.

In ancient times, the phoenix coronet and glowing cape were worn by imperial kinsmen and women who were entitled to wear it in the imperial palace, but could not be worn by ordinary people without restriction. However, ordinary women could wear a phoenix coronet and glowing cape on their wedding day without being punished.

The crown robe, dragon robe, phoenix coronet and glowing cape form the typical dress of ancient Chinese emperors and empresses. These clothes and ornaments record the Chinese people's unique world view and aesthetic.

The majority of imperial clothing came into being during the Zhou Dynasty. Zhou Rites, Ceremonial Rites and The Book of Rites, which have survived to the present day, record in detail the strict rules surrounding clothing for different classes, clothing for ceremonial occasions, and clothing for special officials in charge of carriages, flags and clothes. Reading these numerous sources has given us a panoramic view of the history of clothing in China.