Fabric and craftsmanship are both very important aspects of hanfu making. In this article, several common hanfu fabric processes will be briefly introduced to you.   Zhuang Hua Zhuang Hua (妆花) is the most complex variety of weaving technology in Nanjing cloud brocade, and also the representative jacquard silk weaving variety with the most local characteristics of Nanjing, was popular in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Traditional Zhuang Hua is made of artificial weaving, and the Zhuang Hua on nowadays are all "imitation Zhuang Hua", which are made by machines. The Zhuang Hua fabric is characterized by many colors and is rich in color changes. In terms of the weaving method, the pattern on the fabric is partially painted by using a colored fleece weft bobbin. The color matching is very free and there are no restrictions. The main pattern of the design is usually expressed in two or three levels of color, and some patterns are expressed in simple color (such as pedicels, leaves, and buds). A piece of Zhuang Hua fabric with patterns and colors can be matched in more than a dozen or even 20 or 30 colors. Although there are many colors of Zhuang Hua, but…

I made my first real Hanfu based on patterns from this website. First outing at the beach, with dragons and all. Here is an article with much details on my sewing journey.

The popularity of hanfu has also led to new hanfu-related professions such as "Hanfu Makeup Artist (Zhuang Niang, 妆娘)" and "Hanfu Hairpin Maker (Zan Niang, 簪娘)".   Hanfu Makeup Artist Light and elegant hanfu, shiny hairpin, walked into the hanfu experience hall, and the classical atmosphere came to face. The scissors lane at the Laomen East Pedestrian Street in Nanjing can be said to be "Hanfu Street", and nearly 20 Hanfu stores are gathered. Every holiday, lots of beautiful ladies in hanfu can be met here. Xiao Yang is a hanfu makeup artist in hanfu experience hall. She has just entered the industry for half a year, but has long felt young people’s love for hanfu. "I’m very busy every day during the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, and I need to styling for more than ten ladies." Before entering the industry, Xiao Yang was a teacher. After working for several years, she wanted to change careers, so she studied makeup. "Because hanfu has been relatively popular in recent years, I want to specialize in hanfu makeup, and occasionally make makeup for the bride. I think the makeup of hanfu is lighter and more elegant than that of daily makeup. The eyebrows…

A brief history of waist fan (yaoshan) and steps to DIY one for anyone interested. Vocab Tuan Shan: moon-shaped fan, 团扇, tuánshàn; Zhe Shan: folding fan, 折扇, zhéshàn; Yao Shan: waist fan, 腰扇, yāo shàn; Ping Feng: screen, 屏风, píngfēng.   Introduction When it comes to hanfu, one accessory that it is paired with is a fan. Well-known types of fans are moon-shaped fan and folding fan. But there is another type of fan known as Yao Shan, which translates as "waist fan." The reason why it is called a waist fan is that it can easily be secured at the waist when not used. When the fan is needed, you can just slip it out of the belt and open it up by twisting. It's unlike others where you will either have to constantly hold or unable to close it to take up less space. Waist fans contain characteristics from both moon-shaped fans and folding fans. It took the common round surface of a moon-shaped fan and the ability to close and open when needed from a folding fan. But the round shape is just a common shape everyone goes by. Moon-shaped fans have expanded from simply using a circle…

So you’ve built up a little bit of a collection, and you’re having a bit of a dilemma: With all this fabric hanging out in your closet, you’ve begun to run out of space. You don’t even know how to store these properly—and yet you want to buy more hanfu! Never fear; here’s a tried and true system that I and many other hanfu enthusiasts use to store our hanfu in a way that doesn’t harm the fabric and allows you to use your space most efficiently.   Skirts The easiest, most intuitive way to store your skirts is always going to hanging them. Look for these kinds of hangers that have strong clips on them, and try to choose ones that have larger, flatter clips so that they don’t leave marks on your skirt. To hang the skirt, fold the head of the skirt in thirds, then pull the ribbon out from the innermost side of the skirt. Clip the skirt head with the clips on the hanger, making sure that all three layers are clipped in, then pick up the ribbons together and loop them around the hanger’s hook so they don’t trail on the ground and get…

Wearing armor, riding a horse, holding a traditional weapon, fighting on the battlefield. Such a scene may have appeared in the dreams of many people when they were young. But there is a person who turned the traditional Chinese armor in the dream into reality, he is the first person to restore the ancient armor of the Tang and Song dynasties, Wen Chenhua (温陈华). He has highly restoration the armor of the Song dynasty, which has been lost in China for 700 years, after 6 years. He founded the Lian Kai Tang (炼铠堂), and with his own strength, he promoted the obscure armor restoration craft, and let Chinese armor on the world-class combat stage.   #01 The first person in traditional Chinese armor restoration There are only about 1000 armor restorers in China, 90% of them are Wen Chenhua's students, and for 40 years, he has been restoring Jiazhou (甲胄, traditional Chinese armor) to the extreme. On Wen Chenhua's social platforms profile, there is only a simple sentence "Top Chinese Jiazhou maker" as an introduction. However, he has shared a lot of armor design drawings and finished armor photos, all revealing his deep love for Jiazhou. Traditional armor restoration and…

A detailed descriptions of hanfu skirt's hem. There are different hem lengths to a hanfu skirt, you can follow these descriptions to choose the one suitable for you.

As one of the main composition elements of hanfu tops and robes, sleeves can have a lot of variation. They mostly fall into a couple categories that we have recovered historical artifacts from, though a lot of manufacturers end up with some variation in their patterns. Today we’ll go over a whole ten sleeve types, a bit of historical context, and some of the variations they can go through. Before we get into that, though, let’s go over a little basic information that applies to (almost) all hanfu sleeves. One of the defining characteristics of the hanfu is the 接袖/接袖/jie1 xiu4/sleeve connection. What this means is that the sleeve is not connected to the body of the top or robe at the shoulder, but at a point partway down the upper arm, with the body of the clothing and part of the arm being made up of one piece of fabric, and the rest of the sleeve of another. These are stitched together to create the whole sleeve. The rest of the sleeve is also made of one piece of fabric both front and back, folded over the top and stitched together at the bottom. Some exceptions to this are…

The construction of the body of most hanfu tops and robes is what usually decides what ’type’ of hanfu it is. We’ll go over a few common types of hanfu and what features they have. There are, however, a few rules that pretty much all hanfu tends to follow: First, there’s always a seam down the middle of the back, meaning that the piece of clothing is made up of one piece of fabric on the left and one on the right, stitched together in the center. There’s also never a seam at the shoulder like we have in modern clothing—instead of the front and back being two different pieces of fabric, the front and back are made up of the same piece, just folded over the shoulder. Another thing to note is that while we often refer to tops and robes in hanfu as the two main categories, that isn’t how hanfu is really categorized, just a way for us to talk about the shape of things in English. Instead, we have the 長/长/chang2/long versions and 短/短/duan3/short versions of clothing, which can be applied to most categories of clothing that we separate by construction—the only difference is length. Short…

First installment of the Hanfu in Components series is up! As a reminder, if you haven’t already, check out the introductory article to best find out how to use this guide, otherwise some things might not make sense to you. If you’ve done that already, charge on forward! To kick off the series, this is a brief article explaining how exactly we’re going to break down hanfu into its basic components. We’re still in the introductory stages here, but bear with me and we’ll get to the fun stuff soon.   WHAT MAKES HANFU, HANFU? What defines 漢服/汉服/han4 fu2/hanfu? What sets it apart from everyone else? How do we know when something is truly hanfu, as opposed to hanfu-inspired? These questions can be kind of scary when you first look at them, scared of making a mistake—don’t worry, it’s actually pretty simple! First, we should understand that hanfu isn’t just something that we derived off of paintings and imperial dramas. Every type of hanfu that we have today was recovered as a rotting piece of cloth that we dug up from the ground, studied by historians and made into clothing patterns (‘pattern’ refers the shape of the fabric pieces and…

Hey again everyone! I’m super excited to be introducing a new series that I’m going to be writing over the next few… days? weeks? However much time it takes me to get all of this out! This collection of articles, Hanfu in Components, is a perfect introduction for those of you semi-newbies who feel a little overwhelmed by all the different kinds of hanfu and want to learn more beyond the very basics but can’t find the best place to start. We’ll break down hanfu into its basic components, talk about what parts make up a piece of han clothing, and briefly explore the shape, history, and pattern of each part so that you can get familiar with the way that hanfu is pieced together, no deep historical background needed.   WHAT THIS SERIES WILL COVER Introduction (this article) Hanfu Construction Tops & Robes (Body) Sleeves Collars Putting it All Together   WHAT THIS SERIES WON’T COVER (may change in the future): Skirts (but you can find my article about Types of Hanfu Skirts here! Also may change in the future) Pants (may change in the future) Hanfu underlayers (but you can find my article about Basics of Hanfu Underlayers here!…

In ancient China, there was no tap water, no washing machines, and no cleaning products such as laundry detergent, so how did ancient people launder hanfu and daily care for it?   Ancient laundry hanfu supplies: soap 1.1: Zhou Dynasty - plant ash soap In modern life, soap is the most basic of laundry clothing. However, soap was also used as a cleaning agent to wash clothes in ancient time. Ancient soap was made from "plant ashes", which is the residue of burning plants (herbs and woody plants). It was used to make soap because it was easy to get and store. The ash contains many mineral elements, including potassium carbonate, which removes stain. In the Book of Rites, a document reflecting the history and culture of the Zhou Dynasty, it is written that when the hatband and clothes were dirty, they were washed with plant ashes. “冠带垢，和灰清漱；衣裳垢，和灰请澣。” 1.2: Qin Dynasty - plant ash & shell ash soap During the Qin Dynasty, soap was further upgraded with the addition of a substance called "shell ash". The ash produced by burning shells, when mixed with plant ashes, produces potassium hydroxide, a strong alkali. To make silk soft and white, the ancients…

Can foreigners wear Hanfu? Which dynasty's Hanfu style is more suitable for non-Chinese people, Tang, Song, or Ming? Wearing Chinese hanfu costumes, tasting traditional Chinese food, and learning traditional handicrafts, three young ladies from different countries immersive experienced Chinese culture, in the recently released Chinese traditional culture creative short film "They Are All From China" by the Sichuan Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism, China. https://youtu.be/Ufvs8bqcYgA   Traditional Chinese Hanfu Costume Hanfu is the traditional national costume of the Han people and has a history of over 3,700 years, with different costumes and makeup for different dynasties. In this video, Ms. Ting Yue, the Chinese costume enthusiast and promoter, leads three foreign friends in a special Chinese cultural experience. They put on different dynasties Hanfu to achieve a "gorgeous transformation".   Tang Dynasty Hanfu The Tang Dynasty saw an unprecedented flourishing atmosphere of feudal society, with advanced society, cultural prosperity, advanced silk weaving techniques, and a nationwide tea drinking culture, making it a dynasty in which China exported a great deal of culture, art and technology to surrounding countries. At this time, clothing styles, colors, patterns, and so on, all presented a new situation, the gorgeous crowns and clothing are…

Daxiushan (大袖衫, big sleeves shirt) were originally men's clothing in the Wei and Jin dynasties, but in the Tang dynasty it referred to women's extra wide big sleeves outfits. The shape of the Daxiushan is straight collar, symmetrical lapels, long sleeves, large cuffs, mostly long clothing body and with splitting and lacing.   Daxiushan in Tang Dynasty During the Tang Dynasty, the society was open and Hu clothing was prevalent. Women were free-spirited and often wore men's or Hu clothing. After the flourishing Tang period, the style of women's clothing became wider and wider, and this feature became more obvious in the middle and late Tang period, with general women's clothing, the sleeve width was often more than four feet. Wide sleeve shirts, long skirts and Pibo were worn as the noble dresses at that time, and usually worn on important occasions, such as court meetings, ceremonial, and marriages. The Daxiushan costume is recorded in Zhou Fang's painting "Court Ladies Adorning Their Hair With Flowers" records the Daxiushan costume. The beauty in the painting wears a long dress with a large-sleeved sarong shirt draped directly. The artist's realistic approach not only portrays the delicate clothing materials of the Tang Dynasty,…

As requested by user @Wei on my Mamianqun article, here’s a little summary of all the most popular hanfu skirt (qun or 裙) types and what the difference between them is! I’m not going to go into as much detail as the previous article since my goal is to go through them all quickly and teach you the differences between them, but I’ll be including some brief details on their name, history, construction, and features so that you can better understand the huge variety of skirts in hanfu. Let’s start off with some basics rules hanfu skirts tend to follow. Skirts are made up of one or two pieces of fabric, usually, and they take the shape of a flat piece of pleated or non pleated cloth that gets wrapped around the body and tied in place by ribbons/ties. There are very few exceptions to this, except in hanyuansu, which is modified hanfu for convenience and style. The waistband of the skirt is usually 6-8cm wide and made with a different piece of fabric than the body of the skirt, which the body of the skirt is then attached to—this is referred to as the skirt head (裙頭). But even…

Hey everyone! So there were a couple people in my hanfu server asking about what different kinds of measurements of hanfu were. I answered and did a little compilation of the most basic measurements that you'll see on most sizing charts, if you're choosing a size and buying from a vendor, as well as some that are often used to create patterns and the like. Hope that it's a helpful reference! I've included both traditional and simplified characters in this for better reading and some of my own notes as helpful explanations, let me know if there's any questions you need answered.   Body Measurements Let’s start with the basic measurements of your own body. 身高 - Height. Usually in centimeters, if you don’t understand any of the other measurements, this is the one you want to go by. 體重/体重 - weight. often comes up in either kg or lbs, and it’s pretty easy to figure out which one through common sense. I would recommend that you don’t trust this one too much though since everyone is like… a different density. 三圍/三围 - three rounds, the standard starting point for more detailed measurements. These include the three below: 胸圍/胸围 - the…

Want to wear chest-high ruqun but can't seem to figure out how to keep it from slipping? Here are five ways to fix this problem.

So many choices for your first hanfu—what are some factors you should consider before making your first purchase?

This article is a supplemental part of Hanfu Making(2) - Aoqun Cutting & Sewing Patterns. Together with a series of pictures on making a Ma Mian Qun (马面裙, horse face skirt), it will analyze the structure of Ma Mian Qun and mainly explain how to calculate the pleat width of a Ma Mian Qun. All dimensions are in centimeters (cm). "The data in this article does not take into account the seam allowance, you need to leave 1cm+ space in the seam allowance when you are actually making the dress."   1. About fabric prepare 6 identical pieces of fabric with a width of 60cm and a length that combines your actual needs. Sew 3 pieces together into one piece of fabric with a width of 180cm. Since the most fabric used for making Hanfu is about 150cm wide. So it needs to be pieced together to achieve a longer width. Please note the distinction between the horizontal and vertical directions of the fabric. You can choose a fabric with a nice print for your skirt and it is easier to confirm if it is in the right direction.   2. Structure of the Ma Mian Qun Ma Mian (马面,…

The long-awaited hanfu prom outfit analysis is here!!!