Loose Clothes and Broad Bands

"Loose clothes and broad bands" refers to loose-fitting clothes with long and wide bands of fabric. Clothes of this type were supposed to fulfill a "celestial ideal", as defined by Chinese scholars of the Wei Dynasty, the Jin Dynasty and the Southern and Northern Dynasties. Proportions were so large that raising the arms aimed to "form shade with sleeves". The Book of Song says, "One sleeve is big enough for two arms, and one garment is big enough for two people." This quote allows us to understand the grace, elegance, and dimensions Chinese clothes set out to achieve.

In 220 AD, Emperor Wen of Wei Cao Pi (187-226) succeeded to the throne - he then set out to limit the power of his younger brother Cao Zhi (192-232) in every possible way. It is said that the woman loved by Cao Zhi was taken away by his elder brother and was granted the title of Empress Zhen. One day, Cao Zhi cheerlessly walked along the Luo River at dusk. In a trance, he saw Empress Zhen, who lightly walked across the surface of the water, but he could not approach her. Cao Zhi felt a rush of thoughts and emotions, so he wrote The Goddess of the Luo River in the name of the Goddess of the Luo River, Concubine Mi. In the article, he described the Goddess of the Luo River wearing dazzling silk gauze clothes with the front, hem and sleeves decorated with gorgeous patterns, golden and green ornaments, shoes with patterns and, glittering from head to foot, jade and pearls as light and mysterious as fog. By reading the original text of Cao Zhi's work we can appreciate the beauty of Chinese clothes as well as the beauty of Chinese literature - "Wrapped in the soft rustle of silken garments, she decks herself with flowery earrings of jasper and jade. Gold and kingfisher hairpins adorning her head, strings of bright pearls to make her body shine. She treads in figured slippers fashioned for distant wandering, airy trains of mist-like gauze in tow." Her posture was also light: "Body nimbler than a winging dusk, swift, as befits the spirit she is; traversing the waves in tiny steps, her gauze slippers seem to stir a dust. Her movements have no constant pattern, now unsteady, now sedate; hard to predict are her starts and hesitations, now advancing, now turning back..."

Gu Kaizhi (348-409), the great painter of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, painted the long scroll Picture of the Goddess of the Luo River, which vividly shows the goddess' clothes - the Goddess walks on water lightly like a fairy treading waves, the wind makes her clothes, skirt tail and silk band drift lightly and nimbly, making people fall into all kinds of reveries. This is the charm of Chinese traditional clothes - they are both soft and light. When there is no wind, the vertical lines of Chinese clothes are like a waterfall rushing down a thousand miles. When there is a breeze or the wearer walks slowly, Chinese clothes drift horizontally in an elegant and graceful manner. And these features are not limited to women. Chinese men's clothing features "long skirts" and is supposed to inspire "graceful steps," which is markedly different from male European clothing of the same period.

The "drifting" quality of large, light, long clothes cannot be achieved if the material used is too heavy or if the body is over-wrapped. This intentional lengthening of the front and sleeves in male and female clothing is uniquely Chinese. In European clothing, skirts are long, but sleeves are not; Arab robes cover the head as well as the body, but the sleeves are broad and short; though some Japanese kimonos appear to have long sleeves, they are not long compared to Chinese traditional clothes and some of these long sleeves create a dragging effect. Japanese sleeves can be broad horizontally and droop vertically, and the vertical length is not much longer than the arm. By contrast, the sleeves of Chinese Beijing opera costumes (such as "water sleeves") are artistic exaggerations based on everyday clothes.

The image of a man rowing a dragon boat can be seen on a silk painting found in the Chu tomb at the ammunition depot in Changsha, Hunan, China. He wears a tall "cloud-cutting" hat and a sword decorated with jade or colored glaze. The length of his sleeves proves that an embryonic form of this elegant shape and style existed more than 2,000 years ago. The modern Chinese archaeologist Guo Moruo (1892-1978) thought this person's age, air, and clothing very similar to the poet Lord Sanlu Qu Yuan (340 BC-278 BC). We can imagine Qu Yuan chanting his long romantic poem Sorrow at Parting in clothes that drift as beautifully as the ones featured in the painting. Ancient people said Qu Yuan often chanted poems while walking, rather like the ancient Greek philosophers Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, who carried out their debates wrapped in long gowns made of a complete piece of cloth. The clothes of the ancient Greeks represented their period and their geography and Qu Yuan's clothes also express cultural identity, with a large front and sleeves which both reflect and distort the contours of the human body.

Tao Yuanming (c. 365-427), a scholar of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, once served as a low-level official - the magistrate of Pengze County. Later he resolutely returned to his hometown because he loathed officialdom. In Ah, Homeward Bound I Go, he expressed his wish to live quietly in the countryside. In a euphoric mood, he chanted, "Lightly floats and drifts the boat, and the wind gently flows and flaps my gown." Chen Hongshou (1599-1652), a painter of the Ming Dynasty, created a painting on the theme of Tao Yuanming's poem and depicted his clothes drifting in the wind, symbolizing the spiritual freedom of the poet's return to nature.

The love story of Emperor Ming of Tang (685-762) and Imperial Concubine Yang (719-756) is one of the best-known love stories between Chinese feudal emperors and concubines. In The Eternal Regret, Tang poet Bai Juyi describes how Emperor Ming of Tang sent people to search for the soul of Imperial Concubine Yang after crushing the An-Shi Rebellion. However, "Up to the azure vault and down to deepest place, nor above nor below could he find her trace. He learned that on the sea were Fairy Mountains proud that now appeared, now disappeared amid the cloud." According to this poem, Imperial Concubine Yang did not die but went to Japan - her tomb can even be found in Japan. The poem continues; "When she heard there came the monarch's embassy, the queen was startled out of dreams in her canopy. Pushing aside the pillow, she rose and got dressed, passing through silver screen and pearl shade to meet the guest. Her cloudlike hair awry, not full awake at all, her flowery cap slanted, she came into the hall." "The wind blew up her fairy sleeves and made them float as if she danced the Rainbow Skirt and Feathered Coat." This moving scene illustrates the beauty of Imperial Concubine Yang, and the elegance of her movement. The beauty of her clothes is particular to China.

"Loose clothes" and "broad bands" means that drifting clothes include not only loose clothes, but also capes or silk bands that can drift with the wind.

During the Tang Dynasty women favored the cape, which took the form of a rectangular silk scarf. Excavated pottery figurines tell us that most capes were worn on the shoulders, with one side shorter than the other and the longer side drooping down to cover the arm. These capes were soft and light. It is said that at an outdoor banquet held by Emperor Ming of Tang for his ministers in an imperial garden, Imperial Concubine Yang's cape was so light it was blown away by the wind and landed on the head of minister He Zhizhang (659-744).

The "silk band" wrapped from the back to the front of the body and fixed between the arms. The band was longer than the cape. Beautiful, elegant and graceful "flying apsaras" (female spirits of the clouds and waters) seen in the murals of the Dunhuang Grottoes in Gansu, show the beauty and charm of silk bands. Flying apsaras do not have physical wings like small angels in Western European culture, but their silk bands enabled them to dance all over the sky and fly freely.

Zhang Wo (? -1356), a painter of the Yuan Dynasty, painted images of various gods in Nine Songs, inspired by Qu Yuan's Nine Songs. Actually these figures are not gods but real people because, apart from the "mountain ghost," they all wear the clothes of ordinary people of the time. However, to emphasize the ability of the gods to ride on clouds and mist, Zhang Wo emphasized the movement of the figures' silk bands' and expressed the presence of "heaven on earth" through their drift. The god and Buddhist murals painted by Wu Daozi (c. 680-759) are in a similar vein. Painting theorist Zhang Yanyuan (815-907) described these images as showing "celestial clothes flying and moving along the wind throughout the murals."

As well as capes and silk bands, Chinese women also tied silk ribbons around the waist. In particular, the images of women's clothes depicted by Gu Kaizhi, a painter of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, clearly show that tying silk ribbons at the waist pulled the hem of the clothes into innumerable sharp corners. After being wrapped, these sharp corners overlapped and, when caught by the wind, unexpected, complicated, beautiful and novel effects were produced.

Chinese people do not advocate exposing the body, so loose clothes that cover the body are preferred. Chinese people, especially scholars, believe that people should try to live in harmony with nature. Therefore, though scholars are grounded on earth, they hope to rise above the world and shine like the Sun and the Moon in the sky. Chinese Taoists advocate wearing coats made of natural elements as part of their aim of becoming immortal, so one type of Taoist cape is called a "feather coat." This is an intellectual concept that is manifested in clothing in the pursuit of transcendental detachment.