History of Chinese Culture/Chapter 22
Chapter 22: Clothing, Adornment, and the Culture of the Body
1. Introduction: The Body as Cultural Text
In every civilization, the human body is not merely a biological organism but a cultural text — a surface upon which the values, beliefs, hierarchies, and aesthetic ideals of the culture are inscribed through clothing, hairstyle, adornment, gesture, and physical practice. In Chinese civilization, the culture of the body has been shaped by a distinctive set of philosophical, political, and aesthetic principles that have given clothing, appearance, and bodily practice extraordinary cultural significance. From the elaborate court costumes of the imperial era to the revolutionary simplicity of the Mao suit, from the bound feet of elite women to the disciplined bodies of martial arts practitioners, the Chinese body has been a site of cultural expression, social control, political contestation, and aesthetic cultivation for more than three millennia.
The Confucian tradition placed great emphasis on the regulation of dress and appearance as instruments of social order. The Liji (礼记, "Book of Rites"), one of the foundational texts of Confucian thought, devotes extensive attention to the proper forms of dress for different social ranks, occasions, and seasons — reflecting the Confucian belief that external propriety (礼, li) is both an expression and a cultivation of inner virtue. In the Chinese imperial system, clothing was not a matter of personal choice but a regulated expression of social hierarchy: the colors, fabrics, patterns, and accessories that a person could wear were determined by their rank, and violations of the sumptuary laws (逾制, yuzhi) could be punished as criminal offenses.[1]
This chapter examines the history of Chinese clothing, adornment, and bodily practice, focusing on the cultural meanings and historical transformations of dress, the politics of the body, and the relationship between Chinese material culture and Chinese identity.
2. Historical Costume: Hanfu and the Tradition of Chinese Dress
The term "hanfu" (汉服, literally "Han clothing") refers to the traditional clothing of the Han Chinese — the ethnic majority of China — encompassing a range of garment types that evolved over more than three thousand years, from the silk robes of the Shang dynasty to the elaborate court costumes of the Ming dynasty. Hanfu is characterized by several distinctive features: a cross-collar (交领, jiaoling) that wraps right over left; wide, flowing sleeves (广袖, guangxiu); a sash or belt (腰带, yaodai) rather than buttons; and an overall silhouette that emphasizes length, fluidity, and elegance. The cross-collar wrapping of right over left was established as the standard Chinese practice in early antiquity — wrapping left over right was associated with "barbarian" (非华夏, non-Chinese) customs — and this apparently minor sartorial convention became one of the most important markers of Chinese cultural identity.
The history of Chinese dress can be traced through several major phases. During the Shang and Zhou dynasties, the basic garment was the yi (衣, upper garment) and chang (裳, lower garment) — a two-piece ensemble of upper robe and skirt. During the Warring States period, the "deep garment" (深衣, shenyi) — a one-piece robe that connected the upper and lower garments — became the standard formal dress. The Han dynasty established many of the sartorial conventions that defined Chinese dress for the following two millennia, including the system of official robes (朝服, chaofu) whose colors and ornaments designated the wearer's rank. The Tang dynasty, with its cosmopolitan culture and its openness to foreign influences, witnessed a flowering of fashion creativity, with women's dress in particular displaying an exuberant variety of styles — some derived from Central Asian and Persian models — that reflected the cultural dynamism of the age.
The Song dynasty marked a turn toward more restrained and conservative styles of dress, reflecting the Neo-Confucian emphasis on propriety and moral seriousness. The Ming dynasty (1368–1644) — which was founded on a program of Chinese cultural revival after the Mongol Yuan dynasty — systematized and codified Chinese dress in elaborate detail, establishing the sumptuary regulations and court costume systems that defined the last great era of traditional Chinese clothing.
The contemporary "hanfu revival" (汉服运动, hanfu yundong) — a movement that began in the early 2000s and has grown rapidly, particularly among young Chinese — represents an attempt to recover and revitalize traditional Chinese dress as an expression of cultural identity. Hanfu enthusiasts wear traditional-style garments at festivals, cultural events, and in everyday life, and the movement has generated significant debate about the relationship between clothing, ethnicity, and Chinese identity in the modern era.[2]
3. The Qipao and the Zhongshan Suit
The two garments most closely associated with modern Chinese identity — the qipao (旗袍, also known by its Cantonese name cheongsam) and the zhongshan suit (中山装, Zhongshan zhuang, known in the West as the "Mao suit") — are both products of the cultural transformations of the twentieth century, and both embody the complex negotiations between tradition and modernity, Chinese and Western influences, and political ideology and personal expression that have characterized modern Chinese culture.
The qipao — a close-fitting, high-collared dress with a side slit — evolved in 1920s Shanghai from the traditional Manchu robe (旗人之袍, qiren zhi pao, "banner people's robe") through a process of modernization that incorporated Western tailoring techniques (body-hugging fit, darts, zippers) while retaining Chinese aesthetic elements (mandarin collar, frog closures, silk fabric, Chinese-style ornamentation). The qipao became the definitive dress of the modern Chinese woman in the 1930s and 1940s — symbolizing a new ideal of Chinese femininity that was simultaneously modern and Chinese, elegant and emancipated, cosmopolitan and distinctively national. The qipao's fate in the twentieth century mirrored the political transformations of China: it was condemned and suppressed during the Mao era as a symbol of bourgeois decadence, preserved in Hong Kong and Taiwan as a marker of Chinese cultural identity, and revived in the reform era as both a fashion garment and a symbol of Chinese cultural heritage.
The zhongshan suit (中山装) — named after Sun Yat-sen (孙中山, Sun Zhongshan, 1866–1925), who popularized it as the standard dress of the Chinese Republic — is a high-collared, four-pocketed tunic suit that was designed as a modern Chinese alternative to both traditional Chinese robes and Western business suits. The zhongshan suit's design was said to embody political symbolism: its four pockets representing the Four Cardinal Principles (四维, siwei) of propriety, righteousness, integrity, and a sense of shame; its five center-front buttons representing the five branches of government. After 1949, the zhongshan suit — in its simplified, standardized form — became the universal dress of the People's Republic, worn by men and women, cadres and workers, in a deliberate erasure of class, gender, and regional differences through sartorial uniformity. In the West, this garment became known as the "Mao suit" (毛装, Mao zhuang) and came to symbolize the austerity and ideological conformism of Communist China.
4. Footbinding: The Body and Power
Footbinding (缠足, chanzu) — the practice of tightly wrapping young girls' feet to prevent them from growing, producing a deformed foot of approximately three to four inches in length known as the "golden lotus" (金莲, jinlian) — is one of the most extraordinary and disturbing bodily practices in world history. Practiced in China for approximately one thousand years (from roughly the tenth century to the early twentieth century), footbinding affected hundreds of millions of Chinese women across all social classes (except the very poorest) and became one of the most powerful markers of Chinese cultural identity — and, eventually, one of the most potent symbols of the oppression of women in traditional Chinese society.
The origins of footbinding are obscure and debated. Traditional accounts associate it with the court of the Southern Tang dynasty (937–976), where a dancer named Yaoniang (窅娘) is said to have bound her feet to perform a dance on a golden lotus platform, inspiring admiration that spread the practice among the elite. By the Song dynasty, footbinding had become widespread among the upper classes, and by the Ming and Qing dynasties, it had penetrated virtually all levels of Han Chinese society.
The cultural logic of footbinding was complex and cannot be reduced to a single explanation. Bound feet were considered beautiful according to the aesthetic standards of traditional Chinese culture — they were associated with femininity, refinement, and erotic appeal. The small, tottering gait of a woman with bound feet was regarded as graceful and alluring. Footbinding also served as a marker of social status: a woman with bound feet demonstrated that her family was prosperous enough that she did not need to perform physical labor. And footbinding reinforced patriarchal control over women's bodies and mobility — a woman with bound feet was physically dependent on her family and was effectively confined to the domestic sphere.
It is important to note that footbinding was a Han Chinese practice — it was not practiced by the Manchu, Mongol, or other non-Han peoples of China. Indeed, the Manchu Qing dynasty repeatedly attempted to prohibit footbinding among the Han Chinese population, though these prohibitions were largely ineffective. The practice was also absent among the Hakka Chinese of southern China, whose women — who traditionally worked in the fields alongside men — did not bind their feet, a fact that the Hakka regarded as a point of cultural pride.
The anti-footbinding movement began in the late nineteenth century as part of the broader reform movement that sought to modernize China and eliminate customs perceived as backward and oppressive. Western missionaries, Chinese reformers such as Kang Youwei (康有为, 1858–1927), and the women's rights movement all campaigned against footbinding. The practice declined rapidly in the early twentieth century and was officially banned by the Republic of China. By the mid-twentieth century, footbinding had essentially disappeared, though elderly women with bound feet could still be found in rural China into the twenty-first century.[3]
5. Hairstyle as Political Statement: The Manchu Queue
In Chinese culture, hairstyle has served as a powerful marker of cultural identity and political allegiance — most dramatically in the case of the Manchu queue (辫子, bianzi), the hairstyle imposed on all Chinese men by the Qing dynasty (1644–1912) that became one of the most visible and most contested symbols of Manchu rule over China.
The traditional Chinese hairstyle for men — from at least the Han dynasty onward — involved growing the hair long and binding it in a topknot (髻, ji), covered by a cap or hat. The Confucian tradition taught that the body and hair were gifts from one's parents (身体发肤, 受之父母, shenti fafu, shou zhi fumu) and that cutting the hair was a violation of filial piety. When the Manchu conquerors established the Qing dynasty in 1644, they issued the "Queue Order" (剃发令, tifa ling), requiring all Chinese men to adopt the Manchu hairstyle: the front of the head was shaved, and the remaining hair at the back was grown long and braided into a single queue (辫子, bianzi). The order provoked widespread resistance — encapsulated in the slogan "Keep your hair, lose your head; keep your head, lose your hair" (留头不留发, 留发不留头) — and the Qing government enforced it with brutal severity, executing those who refused to comply.
Over the course of the Qing dynasty, the queue was gradually accepted as a normal element of Chinese male appearance and even came to be regarded, paradoxically, as a Chinese custom. When the revolutionary movement of the late Qing began to advocate the overthrow of the Manchu dynasty, the cutting of the queue became a powerful act of political rebellion — a visible repudiation of Manchu authority and a declaration of allegiance to the Chinese nation. After the fall of the Qing in 1912, the cutting of queues became a mass movement, and the queue was rapidly and completely abandoned.
The experience of the queue illustrates a recurring pattern in Chinese history: the imposition of a foreign bodily practice that is initially resisted as an alien violation of Chinese identity but that is gradually normalized over time and eventually becomes so deeply embedded in daily life that its removal provokes the same resistance that its imposition originally aroused. The history of the queue thus illustrates the intimate connection between bodily practice and political power in Chinese culture — a connection that was reaffirmed in the twentieth century when the Mao era imposed its own sartorial and corporeal uniformity, and when the reform era unleashed a revolution of personal appearance and fashion that continues to transform the Chinese body in the twenty-first century.
6. Jewelry, Adornment, and Personal Decoration
The Chinese tradition of personal adornment encompasses an extraordinary range of materials and techniques — jade, gold, silver, pearl, coral, kingfisher feather (点翠, diancui), cloisonne, silk embroidery, and precious stones — employed in the creation of hairpins (簪, zan), earrings, bracelets, pendants, rings, and other ornamental objects. Chinese jewelry and adornment served not merely as decoration but as markers of social status, expressions of cultural identity, vehicles of auspicious symbolism, and instruments of ritual and spiritual practice.
Jade ornaments (玉饰, yushi) have been the most prestigious form of personal adornment in Chinese culture since the Neolithic period. Jade pendants, bracelets, and earrings were worn by both men and women of the elite classes, and the sound made by jade ornaments striking against each other as the wearer walked was regarded as a sign of refinement and virtue — the Confucian gentleman was supposed to wear jade ornaments that produced a gentle, musical tinkling with every step, reminding him of the need for measured, dignified conduct.
The tradition of kingfisher feather jewelry (点翠, diancui) — in which the iridescent blue-green feathers of the kingfisher bird are meticulously inlaid into gold or silver settings to create hairpins, headdresses, and other ornaments — is one of the most distinctive and technically demanding Chinese decorative arts. Kingfisher feather jewelry was particularly prized during the Ming and Qing dynasties and was a standard element of formal court dress for imperial women. The art has experienced a modern revival, though contemporary practitioners increasingly use synthetic materials in place of actual kingfisher feathers.
7. Cosmetics, Beauty Culture, and the Body Beautiful
The Chinese tradition of cosmetics and beauty culture has a history of more than three thousand years, documented in archaeological evidence, literary sources, and the material remains of cosmetic preparations found in ancient tombs. From the earliest recorded period, both men and women of the Chinese elite employed cosmetics — face powder (粉, fen), rouge (胭脂, yanzhi), lip color (口脂, kouzhi), eyebrow coloring (黛, dai), and fragrant oils — as markers of status, refinement, and aesthetic cultivation.
The ideals of feminine beauty in Chinese culture have varied across periods and regions, but certain themes have been remarkably persistent. The pale complexion (白皙, baixi) — associated with elite status, indoor living, and exemption from manual labor — has been the most enduring ideal, reflected in the ancient saying "one degree of whiteness covers three degrees of ugliness" (一白遮三丑, yi bai zhe san chou). The "cherry mouth" (樱桃小口, yingtao xiaokou), the "willow-leaf eyebrows" (柳叶眉, liuye mei), and the "almond eyes" (杏眼, xingyan) were other recurring elements of the Chinese beauty ideal.
The Tang dynasty is particularly noted for its celebration of female beauty and its elaborate cosmetic culture. Tang-era women employed a remarkable range of cosmetic techniques: face powder made from lead or rice, rouge applied to cheeks and lips, eyebrows shaved and redrawn in fashionable shapes (which changed frequently — at least a dozen distinct eyebrow styles are documented in Tang sources), and decorative patterns (花钿, huadian) painted or applied to the forehead. The diversity and exuberance of Tang beauty culture reflected the cosmopolitan, confident, and culturally innovative character of the Tang dynasty as a whole.
In the modern era, Chinese beauty culture has been transformed by the encounter with Western cosmetic practices and aesthetic ideals, the development of a massive domestic cosmetics industry, and the influence of Japanese and Korean beauty trends. The rise of Chinese beauty influencers on social media platforms like Xiaohongshu (小红书) and Douyin (抖音, the Chinese version of TikTok) has created a vibrant and commercially significant beauty culture that both absorbs international influences and develops distinctly Chinese aesthetic preferences, including the revival of traditional Chinese cosmetic techniques and the embrace of "guofeng" (国风, "national style") beauty aesthetics that draw on historical Chinese models.[4]
8. Contemporary Fashion and the Culture of the Body
The reform era has witnessed a transformation of Chinese attitudes toward clothing, appearance, and the body that is as radical as any in Chinese history. The abandonment of Mao-era uniformity in favor of individual fashion expression, the embrace of international luxury brands, the emergence of Chinese fashion designers on the world stage, and the growing influence of Chinese consumers on global fashion trends have made China one of the most dynamic and commercially important fashion markets in the world. China is now the world's second-largest luxury goods market, and Chinese consumers have become a decisive force in the global fashion industry, driving demand for both international designer brands and a growing number of Chinese fashion labels.
Chinese fashion designers — including Guo Pei (郭培), who gained international attention when Rihanna wore one of her designs to the Met Gala in 2015, and Uma Wang (王汁), who has shown at Paris Fashion Week — are increasingly creating designs that draw on Chinese cultural heritage while engaging with international fashion aesthetics. The "guochao" (国潮, "national tide") movement — a broader cultural trend in which Chinese consumers and creators embrace Chinese-designed brands and Chinese-inspired aesthetics — has transformed the Chinese fashion landscape, with domestic brands like Li-Ning (李宁) reinventing themselves through designs that incorporate traditional Chinese motifs, characters, and color palettes into contemporary streetwear. The tension between Chinese tradition and global modernity, between cultural authenticity and creative innovation, is a defining theme of contemporary Chinese fashion and one that mirrors the broader cultural dynamics of Chinese civilization in the twenty-first century.
8. Martial Arts, Medicine, and the Cultivation of the Body
The Chinese tradition of bodily cultivation (修身, xiushen) extends far beyond clothing and adornment to encompass a comprehensive understanding of the body as a site of physical, moral, and spiritual practice. The Chinese martial arts (武术, wushu), traditional Chinese medicine (中医, zhongyi), and the various practices of health cultivation (养生, yangsheng) — including qigong (气功), taijiquan (太极拳), and meditation — represent distinctive Chinese approaches to the body that integrate physical training with philosophical understanding and spiritual aspiration.
The Chinese martial arts tradition encompasses hundreds of distinct styles, conventionally divided into "external" (外家, waijia) styles — such as Shaolin kung fu (少林功夫), which emphasizes physical strength, speed, and explosive power — and "internal" (内家, neijia) styles — such as taijiquan (太极拳), baguazhang (八卦掌), and xingyiquan (形意拳) — which emphasize the cultivation and direction of internal energy (气, qi) through slow, flowing movements, breath control, and mental concentration. The martial arts have been central to Chinese popular culture for centuries, inspiring a vast body of literature (the wuxia, 武侠, or "martial hero" novel tradition), cinema (the kung fu and wuxia film genres), and contemporary media. Taijiquan, in particular, has become one of China's most visible cultural exports, practiced by millions of people around the world as a form of exercise, meditation, and health cultivation.
Traditional Chinese medicine (中医, zhongyi) represents a comprehensive system of understanding and treating the human body that is fundamentally different from Western biomedicine. Based on the concepts of qi (vital energy), yin and yang, the Five Phases, and the system of meridians (经络, jingluo) through which qi flows, Chinese medicine employs a range of therapeutic techniques — acupuncture (针灸, zhenjiu), herbal medicine (中药, zhongyao), massage (推拿, tuina), dietary therapy, and exercise — to restore and maintain the balance of the body's energies. Chinese medicine has been practiced continuously for more than two thousand years and remains a living medical tradition with millions of practitioners and patients in China and around the world, existing alongside and increasingly in dialogue with Western biomedicine.[5]
9. Conclusion: The Chinese Body in the Twenty-First Century
The culture of the Chinese body — its clothing, adornment, movement, discipline, and care — continues to evolve in the twenty-first century, shaped by the forces of globalization, commercialization, technological change, and the ongoing negotiation between Chinese tradition and international modernity. The revival of hanfu, the global spread of taijiquan, the international success of Chinese fashion designers, the growing influence of Chinese beauty standards in global culture, and the enduring vitality of traditional Chinese medicine all suggest that the Chinese relationship to the body — one of the most distinctive and culturally rich dimensions of Chinese civilization — remains dynamic, creative, and consequential.
References
- ↑ Antonia Finnane, Changing Clothes in China: Fashion, History, Nation (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 1–30.
- ↑ Valerie Steele and John S. Major, China Chic: East Meets West (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), 1–30.
- ↑ Dorothy Ko, Cinderella's Sisters: A Revisionist History of Footbinding (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 1–30.
- ↑ Victoria Sherrow, Encyclopedia of Hair: A Cultural History (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2006), 1–20.
- ↑ Meir Shahar, The Shaolin Monastery: History, Religion, and the Chinese Martial Arts (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2008), 1–30.