Traditional chinese clothing qipao
Quote: “regardless whether formal or casual dress, short cheongsam they must be designed with the basic elements of Hanfu design. The timeless design of Hanfu has influenced global fashion, with elements such as loose silhouettes, wide sleeves, and delicate embroidery appearing in contemporary collections. Partnering with a design studio, Sybarite, we will build a new project – a new genre of art into the Metaverse: Metaverse Fashion Opera (MVFO). This revival is part of a broader movement to reconnect with traditional values and aesthetics, demonstrating how Hanfu embodies more than just fashion. I really like that last quote – “it went in search of origins but came back with originality” – definitely captures the current spirit and trajectory of the hanfu revival movement. I’ll paraphrase this quote about Gothic Revival architecture I read which also fits the Hanfu Movement quite nicely: “it went in search of origins but came back with originality”.
When hanfu came along, it challenged this established notion and proposed a different approach to “traditional clothing”–looking for older clothing styles prior to the absorption of Manchu influence. From my understanding, the word 汉服 hanfu in the meaning we know it as today was first used in the 1990s, when some nationalist historical costume enthusiasts decided to start a movement to revive “traditional Chinese clothing” (in quotation marks because the definition is kind of vague), female hanfu giving birth to the Hanfu Movement. Another idea I’ve been fascinated by is the theory that hanfu was invented to make a catchy term for historical Chinese clothing comparable to kimono or hanbok. The controversy surrounding this view is that while it is true that the term “hanfu” was used in some historical texts, male hanfu they were often used in opposition to clothing worn by foreign peoples or 胡服 hufu (literatlly “foreign garb”) and not as a standalone term.
Hufuqishe (Chinese: 胡服騎射; lit. The longevity lock is known as changmingsuo (lit. The number of enthusiasts for this traditional wear has grown from 3.56 million in 2019 to 6 million in 2020. People expect this to only grow as the years pass on and people continue to explore their options with the Chinese Hanfu. The next three years saw whirlwind growth. It would be a shame not to mention all of the cultural and historical shows that have begun to appear in recent years. Some of the most famous shows are The Imperial Doctress or even Serenade of Peaceful Joy. Both of these shows have numerous influences from the Ming and the Song Dynasties, both of which were incredibly important and used the Chinese Hanfu as their desired style of dress. No matter what has happened throughout their history-even during the warring periods-this dress has continued to prevail and been one of the consistent styles that people always return to. This was probably true to some extent, since there was quite a bit of nationalism among early hanfu enthusiasts and I can see where the need to be “on a par” with Japan and Korea on this matter of representation comes from.
Thankfully these days I see less of it, but for a long time it was the number one misunderstanding people had regarding hanfu. This means that hanfu isn’t so much as a traditional or conservationist community, but rather a modern, revivalist one. Some people considered hanfu to be specifically clothing worn during the Han Dynasty, which isn’t a common view anymore. Throughout the Qing and 20th century, people did have an idea of how Han clothing was a unique system different to Manchu or Western dress, but they just went with the flow and let Han clothing do whatever was considered fashionable. To receive this kind of artisanship, people have to be willing to shop in China and seek out the right artisans from the nation. He wears the usual orange monk robes, with some kind of travel clothes over them. Hanfu refers to the traditional Chinese clothes donned by the Han people. “Han” is the majority ethnicity in China, and “fu” just means “clothing”, “garb” or “costume”, therefore “hanfu” linguistically refers to clothing worn by Han Chinese people.
