Woman's Costume in the Tang Dynasty

In Chinese history, the Tang Dynasty (AD618-907) was a period of unity and prosperity when the polity and economy were highly developed.

Materialistic abundance and a relatively relaxed social atmosphere gave the Tang Dynasty an unprecedented opportunity to develop culturally, reaching its height in poetry, painting, music and dance.

Based on the progress made in silk reeling and dyeing techniques, the variety, quality and quantity of textile materials reached an unprecedented height.

The clothing materials in Tang were exquisite and the dresses of the upper class were mainly made of silk and famous for softness and lightness. The structure was natural, graceful and elegant, and adornments were splendid.

The most outstanding garments in this great period of prosperity were women's dresses, complimented by elaborate hairstyles, ornaments and face makeup.

The Tang women dressed in sets of garments, each set a unique image in itself. In general, the Tang women's dresses can be classified into three categories:

The traditional ruqun or double layered or padded short jacket that was typical of central China; the hufu, or alien dress that came from the Silk Road;, as well as the full set of male garments that broke the tradition of the Confucian formalities.

Ruqun is made up of the top jacket and long gown and a skirt on the bottom. The Tang women inherited this traditional style and developed it further, opening up the collar as far as exposing the cleavage between the breasts. This was unheard of and unimaginable in the previous dynasties, in which women had to cover their entire body according to the Confucian classics. But the new style was soon embraced by the open-minded aristocratic women of the Tang Dynasty.

The Tang aesthetic was that of suppleness and opulence. In Tang paintings, women tried to show their suppleness by pleating their skirts in an accordion form, and raised the waist all the way up to under the armpits, so that the waistline was barrel shaped to show a full and rounded body contour.

Zhang Xuan and Zhou Fang, famous painters of the time, were particularly good at portraying opulent women in elaborate dresses. Zhou , in his painting Lady with a Flower in her Hair, portrayed a beauty with a gown lightly covering the breasts, revealing soft and supple shoulders under a silk cape.

Though the forms of woman’s garments were a continuation from the Han Dynasty (206BC-AD220) and the Sui Dynasty (AD581-618), they were also influenced by cultures and arts of the Western Regions.

In the Tang Dynasty, the trades and cultural exchanges with Korea, Vietnam, Japan, Persia and other countries gradually became frequent, and they mutually dispatched emissaries and accepted students of other countries.

The Tang government was tolerant, and often appreciative of religions, art and culture from the outside world. Chang'an, the Tang capital, therefore became the center of exchange among different cultures. In this way, an open and romantic style of dress and personal adornments was formed.

What is worth special mention is that women in Tang were allowed to wear dresses absorbing elements from other cultures. It was a fashion for them to wear hufu (garments of the Tartars or those who lived in the Western Regions). After the High Tang, the influences of hufu were gradually weakened and women's garments became broad and loose day by day. As to ordinary women's garments, the width of sleeve was always more than 1.3 meters.

Because of communication with the Western Regions, the influence of dressing culture of other minorities on the Tang court also reflected the change of thoughts and concepts

Chinese women were seriously restricted by the old Confucian or feudal ethical code all through the ages. The social status of ancient women was very low: they often served as Jileren (music performer), Guanji (official performer), Gongji (palace performer) and Jiaji (family performer), and were regarded as the playthings and goods that can be sold and bought by rich people.

Some females had a rebel spirit in the Tang Dynasty, so they climbed or jumped over the walls and went to nature to view beautiful scenes and/or go sightseeing in the spring by riding horses with men. Just as recorded by historical materials and paintings such as "Painting of Lady of Guoguo on a Spring Outing" by Zhang Xuan, some girls therefore dressed in men's riding garments in order to go out.

Besides the normal materials people in Tang Dynasty made their clothing from, there were some other special means for making clothes.

Princess Anle (a Princess of Tang, the youngest daughter of Emperor Zhongzong) had the bright idea of wearing a skirt made entirely from feathers and she ordered the imperial workshops to prepare one for her.

The result, apparently, was spectacular and the skirt glowed with different colors by day and night and depending on whether the viewer was favored with the front or the rear view of the princess.

The fashion spread rapidly and hunters descended in hordes upon the birds of China - so much so, in fact, that the numbers of birds declined disastrously, causing the Divine Emperor to have the original skirt ritually burned as a way of putting an end to the craze.

As an important cultural element, woman’s costume in various forms in the Tang Dynasty well illustrates the open-mindedness and affluence during that period.