Women's clothing in the Tang Dynasty was gorgeous and varied from front to back, but there were several basic styles: skirts, aprons, blouses and blouses. Women's dresses in the early Tang Dynasty were mostly long skirts with narrow sleeves and bow shoes or high heels, that is, the style of "small head shoes and narrow clothes". With the development of social economy, the close relationship between ethnic groups and China and foreign countries, especially the liberation of women's thoughts, the modeling of women's wear in Tang Dynasty tends to be exposed and open. In the early Tang dynasty, women in the upper class often went out as a whole body barrier. Since the Yonghui emblem, curtains, hats and skirts have gradually become shallow and uncovered, and scholars have followed suit. Soon, Hu Mao got on his horse and galloped in a bun, or paraded through the city in men's clothes and boots. In the early days of Tianbao, "aristocratic gentry like to wear Hu clothes, while women are narrow-sleeved", and there are "pink breasts and half-hidden snow" and "snow on their chests". After the mid-Tang Dynasty, narrow-sleeved clothes gradually became obsolete, and instead, wide-sleeved clothes and women's clothes became fatter and fatter.
(2) Women's wear
Tang costume is the main dress of women in Tang Dynasty. During the Sui Dynasty and the early Tang Dynasty, women used small sleeve as shorts and wore tight-fitting long skirts with high waists, usually above the waist, and some even tied ribbons under their armpits, giving people a pretty and slender feeling. The picture on the left shows a woman in a long silk dress (Tang Sancai figurines unearthed in Guanlin, Luoyang, Henan Province)
The coat is short or half-arm, which together with the shawl constitutes an important part of the skirt at that time. The shape of the half arm is like today's short-sleeved shirt, because its sleeve length is between long sleeves and crotch (vest), so it is called half arm. )
In the early Tang dynasty, women's clothes were mostly made of silk, also known as painted silk, which was usually cut into tulle with painted patterns printed on it. The length is generally more than two meters. When in use, it is draped over the shoulders and rolled between the arms. With the swing of the arm, I walk and jump from time to time, which is very beautiful. From a large number of images, women in the Tang Dynasty like to use silk as decoration in various occasions such as work, entertainment or travel. During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, women's daily clothes were mostly rafts, coats, shirts and skirts. This picture shows a woman wearing a long silk dress in the early Tang Dynasty. Silk is a strip-shaped towel, which is draped over the shoulders and wrapped on the back of the hand. It is usually made of thin gauze with patterns printed on it or patterns made of gold and silver thread. Widely popular in the Tang Dynasty. It is made of gauze painted with silver flowers or gold and silver powder, one end of which is fixed on the chest belt of the half arm, and then draped over the shoulder and wound between the two arms. There are two kinds of silk: one is that the flag is wide and short, which is mostly used by married women; The other length can reach more than two meters, which is mostly used by unmarried women. There are two kinds of scarves worn by women in the Tang Dynasty: one is wide and short, and it is worn over the shoulders. Shaped like a cloak. The silk scripts painted in the murals of Princess Yongtai's tomb in Ganxian County, Shaanxi Province and Jinsheng Village's tomb in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province belong to this type. The width of another silk scarf is narrower than this, but the length is increased. Women usually wear it and wrap it around their arms. When they walk, they seem to be dragging two ribbons behind them. Zhou Fang's Picture of a Lady in a Flower, Picture of a Lady in a Fan and Zhang Xuan's Stamping Picture all belong to this category.
The women's dress painted on the left is a typical Hu fu style, which was popular in Kaiyuan and Tianbao years. It is characterized by lapels, lapels, narrow sleeves and brocade edges. There are a large number of murals in tombs in Shaanxi and other places. There are also women in this dress in silk paintings unearthed in Astana, Turpan, Xinjiang. All women in Hu clothes have belts around their waists. The belt was originally an ornament of the northern nationalities, which was introduced to the Central Plains in Wei and Jin Dynasties. In the Tang Dynasty, it was once regarded as a necessary thing for all officials, and seven items, such as bags and knives, were hung on it, commonly known as "seven wastes". After Kaiyuan, ordinary officials stopped wearing them because of the new regulations of the imperial court. But it is very popular among folk women. Women who wear this kind of clothing have leather belts around their waists, and a few small belts often hang down from the leather belts, which are only decorative and have no use value.
(3). Women's clothing and its status
By the Tang dynasty, the country was unified, the economy was prosperous, the shape was more open, and the costumes were more and more gorgeous. The characteristic of women's dress in Tang Dynasty is the unity of skirt, blouse and blouse. Among women, there is an image of topless and bare arms. On the mural on the east wall of Princess Yongtai's tomb, there is an image of a woman in the Tang Dynasty, with a high bun and bare chest, a HongLing on her shoulders, a yellow short-sleeved shirt, a long green dress sweeping the floor and a red belt hanging from her waist. Therefore, it can be seen that "Pink Chest Shimada Hanzo Snow" and "Skirt Sweeping Plum Blossoms when Sitting" are not empty words. Perhaps "Beauty Pictures" can help us understand this better. The woman in the picture is wearing a long skirt with a high waist and a tube top made of silk, which looks relaxed and elegant.
In the early Tang Dynasty, women wore small sleeve, a kind of tight-fitting long skirt with high waist, usually above the waist. Some people even tied ribbons under their armpits, giving people a pretty and slender feeling.
According to the book of the Old Tang Dynasty, when Wude and Zhenguan were riding horses, the imperial secretary was "Yi Rong, but he was completely cut off and didn't want to see it". Now it seems that she should be a real Arab woman; When we arrived in Tang Gaozong, women took to the streets wearing curtain hats, which "dragged their skirts around their necks and gradually became shallow". We can see this style of curtain hat on the female characters on horseback unearthed from Zheng Rentai's tomb in Xi 'an. After Wu Zhou, curtain caps became popular; During the kaiyuan period, "all riders riding from the imperial palace wore Hu Mao without a cover" and "the system of curtain caps was useless". Later, even Hu Mao took off and "galloped in a bun".
We can still see the scene of the Kaiyuan period in the paintings handed down from generation to generation. You Chuntu, the wife of the State of Guo, depicts the spring outing of Yang's sister, a famous royal relative in the Xuanzong period of Tang Dynasty. We can see that the woman in the painting is wearing a skirt and silk, but she is proud and confident, without the image of a shy woman in later figure painting.
"Wearing husbands' clothes, boots and shirts" and "women wearing men's clothes" have always been regarded as disobedience to women's morality in the history of China, so they have been extremely rare for thousands of years, but this kind of clothing phenomenon was extremely popular in the Tang Dynasty, especially in Kaiyuan and Tianbao years. There is a line in the tomb of Princess Yongtai, which can be seen as two ladies-in-waiting dressed in men's clothes and Khufu. Similar paintings can also be found in the tombs of Wei Wei and Prince Zhang Huai in Xi. This shows the popularity of this kind of clothes in the upper class at that time.
We can sum up the women's clothing in Tang Dynasty in two words: bold and unrestrained; Dare to wear tulle and dare to wear men's clothes to the streets. This phenomenon never happened again after the late Tang Dynasty and before the Republic of China. If we compare the pictures of beautiful women with those of Empress Dowager Cixi's birthday, it is obvious that women in the Tang Dynasty dress boldly. Cixi's clothes are complicated and gorgeous, with embroidered patterns and pearls everywhere, but compared with several thin shirts in the court of the Tang Dynasty, they can only reveal a decadent atmosphere of the last days.
Women's boldness in Tang Dynasty is inseparable from their social status. According to the data, in daily life, women in the Tang Dynasty actively engaged in various recreational activities, including horseback riding, archery, tug-of-war, ball games, swinging, playing grass and so on. They have independent and open social activities and even form associations. The center of power in the Tang Dynasty was once dominated by women. Wu Zetian's daughter, Princess Taiping, the empress of Zhongzong and her daughter, Princess Anle, all took an active part in politics. All this shows that the bondage of women in the Tang Dynasty is obviously less than that in other times, which is different from the traditional concept of "women are virtuous but not talented". In this context, how did foot binding, which seriously damaged women's physical and mental health, become popular in the Tang Dynasty? Women's clothing in the Tang Dynasty also reflects that women in the Tang Dynasty did have a high social status.
However, after all, the Tang Dynasty was a hierarchical feudal society. All the gorgeous clothes we are talking about now are only exclusive products of the upper class. There are more than 25,000 words in the Book of the New and Old Tang Dynasty (the Book of the New Tang Dynasty is the Book of Car Service), but only a few words like "Shu Ren married a woman" are mentioned. It is even more difficult to find cultural relics about the costumes of civilian women in the Tang Dynasty from aristocratic tombs. On the land of China more than 0/000 years ago, there were only a handful of women who could wear those gorgeous clothes. We always think that women's clothing in the Tang Dynasty is luxurious and beautiful, but we don't know what the actual situation is. The so-called "first-hand information" can certainly reflect the truth of history to a certain extent, but more often, they will blind our eyes.