Beautiful Tang Suits

People today are familiar with Tang suits - when an international summit is held in China, the international media usually notes the "Tang suits" officials wear. Actually, Tang suits summarize different elements of Chinese clothing. China had great global influence during the Tang Dynasty and, from the perspective of clothing history, the clothing of the Tang Dynasty is unrivalled - clothes of the Tang Dynasty were the most splendid in the history of China's clothing culture.

The Tang Dynasty (7th century AD-9th century AD) not only encompassed a vast territory, had political stability and enjoyed economic prosperity, it also had open policies towards foreign countries and allowed foreigners to do business in China, to study in China, and even to participate in the imperial examinations for the selection of officials to hold official positions. Thanks to the adoption of these attitudes the Tang capital, Chang'an, became a center for Sino-foreign cultural exchange. It is worth mentioning that women of the Tang Dynasty did not have to abide by Confucian rules - they could wear clothes of various styles and they enjoyed the freedom to choose spouses and to divorce. The affluent society and the relatively relaxed social environment contributed to the unprecedented cultural development of the Tang Dynasty, and many leading figures emerged in the fields of poetry, painting, music and dancing. In addition, the textile industry, building on the solid foundation established by the Sui Dynasty, developed in leaps and bounds during the Tang Dynasty, and silk reeling and dyeing techniques reached very high levels of achievement. The variety, output and quality of clothing materials was unprecedented, clothing styles were not limited to one type, and fashions changed rapidly.

At the peak period of the Tang Dynasty, women's clothes, hair styles, jewelery and cosmetics were at their most splendid. Tang women attached importance to matching clothes, and every outfit had an overall look, with unique characteristics. A person's social background was ascertained via their clothes and, aware of this, people used the artistry of clothing to enhance their position. Clothing was highly individualized and had interesting cultural connotations. Tang women's suits can be classified into three main types: clothes originating with the nomadic groups of the northwest and influenced by the trade of the Silk Road, typical traditional blouse-skirt suits of the central plains, and complete men's suits boldly worn in violation of Confucian rules.

The blouse-skirt suit, consisting of a short blouse, a long gown and a skirt, was not new to the Tang Dynasty, but Tang women wore the suit in new ways. For example, traditionally, collar shapes were alternated - from round to square, oblique, straight, and heart-shaped collars - but during the Tang period the collars of short blouses and long gowns were simply changed into open collars. This was an unprecedented innovation. Tang suits were worn mainly by imperial concubines and court entertainers such as singers and dancers, but they became favored by officials and ladies of the upper classes. This shift in who wore Tang suits demonstrates that the Tang people were very open-minded. Confucian writing stipulated that women should wrap their bodies in tight clothes before going out. Women of other dynasties did not dare to wear Tang women's clothes, which lowered the collar to the upper part of the breasts to reveal the hollow between the breasts.

Clothing of the northwestern ethnic groups, worn by women during the Tang Dynasty

"Belle" painting was art that took as its subject the beautiful women of the court. Zhang Xuan and Zhou Fang were belle painters of the Tang Dynasty, and they were good at drawing the beautiful women of the imperial palace. In Court Ladies Wearing Flowered Headdresses, by Zhou Fang, women wear long skirts and their breasts are covered by silk gauze blouses with big sleeves but without any upper under garments. The painter used realistic painting methods to portray the gorgeous silk materials and embroidery of Tang clothing and showed the almost-transparent quality of silk gauze.

The Tang thought plumpness and colorful beautiful - they admired peonies for their large size and bright colors. We can see from Tang paintings that Tang women used 6-width, 8-width and 12-width clothing materials to make skirts. Then skirts with the waist raised to the armpits emerged in order to fit in even more material. Thus women seemed plumper and more graceful because their waists could not be seen. Men with small shoulders were thought of as handsome and women with small necks were deemed beautiful.

In order to describe Tang skirts, poets composed ingenious verses that mention not only styles, but also the colors of skirts and the textures of clothing. The Tang poet Meng Haoran (689-740) described skirts in a poem obviously designed to praise their length: "Clothes bands wind on tiny grass blades at the time of sitting, and skirt hems sweep fallen plum blossoms at the time of walking." Li Qunyu (808-862) wrote "six-width skirts drag like the Xiang River" to describe the numerous materials used to make skirts as well as the looseness of skirts, which moved like waves, nimble and meaningful. Sun Guangxian (901-968) wrote "when she walks lightly like a wave, the six-width silk skirt sweeps the ground." These words are very vivid: the skirt with dense wrinkles makes the wearer appear to be walking on the rippling surface of the water. During the reign of Wu Zetian (624-705) more than ten bronze and silver bells were added as decoration to the skirt's four corners, and rang when the wearer walked.

Tang Women liked skirts in the following colors: deep red, pinkish yellow, dark reddish purple, light blue, grass green, and tulip. Skirts in the color pomegranate remained popular for a long time. The poet Li Bai (701-762) wrote "boats are rowed with magnolia oars, and wine is drunk by in pomegranate skirts"; Bai Juyi wrote "the eyebrows are more beautiful than willow leaves, and the skirt is more beautiful than pomegranate flowers" to vividly depict a woman's beautiful eyebrows and skirt. Another Tang poem, Song of Yanjing in May, tells us that all the people on the street wore red skirts, so the street seemed to be on fire, which must have been rather spectacular. Tulip skirts were dyed with vegetable dyes, but this plant was not the tulip that originated in Asia Minor but a perennial zingiberaceae herb. The juice of its big rhizomes and fusiform root tubers could dye cloth, and was very fragrant.

There is another interesting story about Tang skirts. During the reign of Emperor Zhongzong of the Tang Dynasty (656-710), Princess Anle had a skirt made from the feathers of one hundred birds, which was a masterpiece in the long history of Chinese weaving and embroidery. The skirt wove fibers with feathers in such a way that one color could be seen in daytime, another color could be seen under the light of a lamp, another color could be seen from an upright angle, and yet another color could be seen from the opposite angle. Women in rich families wanted skirts made of the feathers of one hundred birds, and people went to great lengths to catch birds, including rare birds in remote mountain forests, for their feathers. It seems that the people in the past pursued fashion as enthusiastically as people do today.

Women's blouse-skirt suits were not just an upper and a lower garment. Clothes of other styles were used to supplement or decorate them. For example, the half-arm shawl was a short-sleeved blouse. Today people wear short-sleeved blouses in the summer, but Tang women often wore them on top of a long-sleeved blouse. Short-sleeved blouses were similar in function to sleeveless overcoats, but their sleeve length was in between that of sleeveless overcoats and long-sleeved blouses, so it was called a "half-arm shawl". It was thought to make wearers look graceful and attractive.

Tang women liked wearing capes and hanging silk bands on their arms. The difference between these two decorations is that capes were broad, short, light, and usually worn on one shoulder (although wool capes could be used to keep out the cold). Silk bands were more like beautiful "streamers" and later people included them when painting fairies and "belles" in ancient costumes.

Shoes matching the blouse-skirt suit include phoenix-head silk shoes with high heels, and soft but exquisite and light shoes woven with linen threads or cattail leaves. Apart from the visual information about shoes provided by paintings, shoes have been excavated in Xinjiang and other places.

When wearing the blouse-skirt suit, Tang women usually did not wear decorations like hats and garlands. They wrapped a big scarf called "mi" from head to foot before going out. Later, this changed into a cone-shaped hat wrapped in thin silk. This cone-shaped hat was popular during the early Tang Dynasty, but was rejected at the peak of the dynasty and women simply rode horses with their hair, styled in a chignon, exposed.

The changeable hairstyles of women during this period reflect the luxurious fashion trends of the time. Upper chignon styles included the cloud chignon, the spiral-shaped chignon, the half-flipped chignon, the reversely-tied chignon, the triangular chignon, the double-ring chignon, the startled swan chignon, the Huihu chignon, the Wuman chignon and the towering chignon. In addition, there were more than 30 lower chignon styles, including the double chignon, the drooping girl's chignon, the disheveled chignon, the half-flipped chignon and the coil chignon. Most of these chignons are named after shapes, and some are named after minority ethnic groups. Today we can see images of the period that show chignons decorated with gold hairpins, jade ornaments, fresh flowers and silk flowers, but we can also view surviving exquisite gold and silver head ornaments and silk flowers.

Tang women also gave great thought to makeup. The Ode of Mulan, a ballad of the Wei Dynasty, the Jin Dynasty and the Southern and Northern Dynasties (before the Tang Dynasty), describes the heroine Mulan disguised as a man to take her father's place in the army. Returning home after the war she "takes off her wartime gown and puts on her old-time clothes." "Facing the window she fixes her cloudlike hair, and hanging up a mirror she dabs on yellow flower powder." Yellow flower powder, also called "golden flower," was used to decorate the area between the eyebrows.

According to ancient records, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty particularly liked women's eyebrows to be painted - he was known as an "addict of eyebrows." Xuanzong asked painters to paint ten different types of eyebrows, including the mandarin duck style, the hill style, the mountain peak style, the branch style, and the reverse-halo style. However, imperial women and ordinary women had created innumerable eyebrow styles before Emperor Xuanzong's stipulations. Women not only painted their eyebrows, but they also imitated the Buddhist makeup styles of the northwestern ethnic groups, including "yellow forehead powder," with vertical "slanted red patterns" at the tips of the eyebrows. There is a legend about "slanted red patterns." In the Three Kingdoms Period, Emperor Wen of Wei Cao Pi (187-226) had a maid named Xue Yelai. Emperor Wen favored her very much. One night, when Emperor Wen was reading under a lamp, Yelai came to serve him and accidentally bumped her head on a crystal screen. Blood flowed down her temple immediately. After the wound healed, a red scar on one side of her face still remained, but Emperor Wen still liked her. So maids pursued this fashion and painted symmetrical red scars with rouge on the face, which, at first, was called "morning glow makeup" because its shape was like a red morning glow, but was later called "slanted red patterns" by most people. Tang women painted vermilion on their lips and different styles prevailed. When small mouths were in vogue, the whole of the lips and face were covered by lead powder and then a small lip shape was painted. Apart from red lips, two round dots called "di" or "yan" were added at one centimeter from the side of each lip, i.e. around the location of some people's dimples, to enhance women's beauty. A painted pattern or ornament made of materials such as gold foil, black paper, snail shells and mica sheets, i.e. the golden flower mentioned above, was applied between the eyebrows, and there is a moving story about this. It is said that Emperor Wu of the Song Dynasty (one of the Southern Dynasties) Liu Yu (363—422) had a daughter called Princess Shouyang. On the 7th day of the 1st lunar month, when Princess Shouyang was walking (or lying) near the Hanzhang Palace, the breeze blew plum blossom that happened to stick to Princess Shouyang's forehead and could not be removed or washed off. Because it looked very beautiful, a kind of facial makeup called "Shouyang makeup" or "plum makeup" became popular. In the Song Dynasty, Ouyang Xiu (1007-1072) wrote in a ci poem, "She breathes to warm her hands so fair and adorns with mume blossoms her hair." In the Tang Dynasty, Li Fuyan recorded another story that describes the origin of the "golden flower" makeup tradition in A Sequel to Accounts of the Mysterious and Strange. A person named Wei Gu passed Song City one day and stayed at an inn. In the evening, he saw an old man under the moon sitting leisurely beside a bag full of red string. According to a Chinese saying, if an old man sitting under the moon ties the legs of a man and woman with a red string, then they are married. So Wei Gu approached the man and asked him who his future wife would be. The old man opened and checked the marriage register and said Wei Gu's wife would be the daughter of the old woman selling vegetables in the north of the city, and that she was currently only three years old. Upon hearing this, Wei Gu became very angry and ordered his servant to kill the girl. The servant could not bring himself to do this, so he just stabbed the place between the girl's eyebrows in a hurry. After more than ten years, prefectural governor Wang Tai thought Wei Gu was valiant and trustworthy, so he betrothed his adopted daughter to him. The bride's forehead was decorated with a golden flower. At night, she removed her makeup but did not take off the golden flower. Wei Gu felt puzzled. He then learned that the bride was the girl wounded by the assassin sent by him.

After the peak period of the Tang Dynasty, the area of the face that makeup application extended to include both sides of the nose, and different styles were referred to as the coin shape, the apricot shape, the peach shape, the bird shape, and the flower shape, amongst others. Pictures of women with "peach-shaped faces covered by light makeup and decorated by many vflower patterns" can be seen in the murals of the 61st Mogao Grotto, painted during the Five Dynasties in Dunhuang.

Just when Tang women thought there was no other areas of the face where further painting could take place, facial makeup fashion suddenly changed. The New Book of Tang mentions that after the middle period of the Tang Dynasty women pursued the fashion of applying black cream to the lips instead of rouge. The poet Bai Juyi wrote in his poem The Fashion of the Times: "The fashion of the times, the fashion of the age. They came from the city and spread to four corners. Trends of the age... a fashion travels to all places, near and far, cheeks not applied with rouge, a face with no powder. Raven black paste smeared on lips, those very lips like mud, a pair of eyebrows painted and made out low as the number 'eight.' Beautiful and ugly, black and white, all have but lost their former looks. Made-up to the hilt as if holding in a sorrowful cry." Makeup of this type was called "crying makeup" or "tear makeup", and it was accompanied by the "horse fall chignon" (slanted to one side), the "bending step" and the "decayed teeth smile" (smiling shyly as if having a toothache). Of course, some women applied light makeup - for example, the Imperial Concubine Yang's elder sister, Lady Guoguo, "visited the emperor wearing lightly drawn eyebrows," in an effort to win Emperor Li Longji's favor with light makeup.

In summary, the Tang blouse-skirt suit features the basic cultural components of many purely Chinese traditional clothing styles and, as such, is a wonderful example of the beauty of Chinese clothes.

Tang women also wore men's clothes. The typical men's clothes of the Tang Dynasty were a scarf worn on the head, a round-collared robe, and a waistband and shoes made of six pieces of black leather. This type of suit could make a man look capable, unrestrained and cultured, and a woman wearing these clothes was thought to have a handsome and irreverent style (no lead powder would be worn on the face when wearing men's clothes). Although Confucian writing stipulated that "men and women should not wear the same clothes," images of Tang women wearing men's clothes can be seen in Zhang Xuan's palace in Ladies with Silk Fans, Lady Guoguo on a Spring Outing and in murals at the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang. The Old Book of Tang and Notes on Ancient and Present-day China also records that Tang women wore men's clothes, including leather boots, robes, horsewhips and hats, and that they dressed like this regardless of their social status and whether they were at home or away from home. This shows that Tang Society was more open than others and that there were fewer restrictions on women.

Tang women also liked the exotic clothes of the northwestern nomadic ethnic groups, brought from the Silk Road. These clothes included the huntuo hat, with its pointed top, tight long gowns with narrow sleeves and an overturned collar, long trousers, tall leather boots and waistbands with multiple hanging leather strips.

These northwestern clothes were introduced from the Western Regions by camels and included many elements of Indian, Persian and other ethnic clothes. Tang women found these styles refreshing, so a craze for them swept across the cities of the central plains like a violent wind. Northwestern clothes were most popular in the capital, Chang'an, and in Luoyang. The poet Yuan Zhen wrote "Ever since barbarian cavalry raised smoke and dust, the sheep-and-goat stretch of felt and furs has filled Xian and Le. Our women became barbarian wives, learned barbarian make-up. Singsong girls offered barbarian tunes, applied themselves to barbarian music... Barbarian tunes, barbarian riders, together with barbarian make-up, for fifty years these in spread through." This poem reflects the craze for clothes of the northwestern nomadic ethnic groups in this period.

Compared with women's clothes, men's clothing did not change much during the Tang Dynasty. It should be noted that men's clothes of this period had already incorporated certain cultural elements of ethnic groups in the Western Regions, such as the waistband and leather boots. The Tang people liked riding horses, and both men and women rode horses, unlike people of the central plains who wore traditional silk gentility bands and silk shoes. Some say the reason for this love of horses was because the rulers of the Tang Dynasty with the surname of Li were descendants of northwestern ethnic groups, who had a similar love of horses.

The Tang people had an air of authority and drew on the strengths of the other cultures they encountered. Tang clothing displays this authority and these influences and, as a result, was spectacular - "the coats of many countries bow to the Pearl Crown."