Women and Clothing in the Yuan & Ming Dynasty (1260-1644) | Ep.5 | Chinese Clothing Through the Ages

The civil and gentoo inclinations that exemplified the Song dynasty also led to its downfall. In 1279, Southern Song fell to the Mongols, who absorbed China into their empire and founded the Yuan dynasty. Being the first Chinese dynasty ruled and administered by foreign nomads, the Yuan dynasty sticks out as a sore spot for the Han emperors who succeeded it. Chinese historians often paint the short-lived dynasty as cruel and lacking in any sort of culture. However, as you may have guessed, this is not entirely true. Especially regarding the clothes people wore. Firstly, the Yuan administrators did not force Han Chinese people to give up their ethnic clothes. Many Han people, particularly those in the South, continued wearing Song-style dress. For women, this meant separate tops and skirts. Secondly, the Mongol nobility were avid consumers of Chinese silk. They opened imperial workshops that wove opulent silks influenced by Middle Eastern styles. A kind of cloth woven with gold called nashi shi was especially prized. It can be seen adorning the edges of collars and cuffs, such as on Empress Chabi's red robes. Royal and aristocratic Mongol women usually wore tall hats called bubu headdresses. Contrary to popular belief, not all Yuan garments were left-closing like the barbarians they were accused of being. Many of their robes were right-opening like those of the Han. Generally, these robes had narrow sleeves and were worn with trousers and boots by both men and women. Commoners were forbidden from wearing royal colors such as yellow, green, and red, so most commoners wore brown or gray. The Yuan dynasty ended as violently as it began. Less than a hundred years after its founding, Han peasant Zhu Yuanzhang marched his rebel troops into the capital and toppled the Yuan Empire. As the first emperor of the Ming, Zhu Yuanzhang issued strict rules for how his subjects should dress. Yuan dress was to be discarded in favor of new styles inspired by the glorious Han dynasties of old, namely the Tang dynasty. Getting an entire population to throw away perfectly serviceable clothes and switch to fashions from more than 400 years ago was, of course, easier said than done. The turtleneck had been popular among men of all classes in the Yuan. With narrow sleeves and a pleated skirt attached to the waist, it suited horseback riders exceedingly well. And this style of robe persisted into the Ming, where it was called the yisa and worn by royalty and ministers. Some textiles developed and honed in the Yuan dynasty became hugely influential in the Ming and even the Qing. Ming garments used gold brocade motifs similar to ones found on Yuan textiles. Yuan robes also featured the precursor to the Mandarin squares used on Ming and Qing officials' robes, known as xiongbei, although they did not correspond to rank yet. In fact, even women seemed to have worn them. The bijia, a long sleeveless vest popular among women in the Ming, also evolved from a Yuan garment, supposedly one that the Empress Chabi fashioned to facilitate the Mongol horse-riding lifestyle. The Ming was when the concept of fashion, nebulous as it may be, started to take root. At the beginning of the dynasty, the economy was still recovering from the decades of bloody conflict, so people tended to dress more frugally. Early Ming women reverted to the traditional Chinese combination of top and skirt instead of Mongol robes. They wore a short hip-length top called shan, which was unlined or ao, which was lined. Tops with center front openings became popular. Pleated wrapped skirts of two panels with unpleated front and back sections were worn everywhere. This is what later became known as the ma mian qun, the horse-face skirt, although it was simply known as the qun or baize qun in the Ming. Another popular type of collar was the cross collar. Round collars similar to tang styles were mostly worn by officials' wives. Various styles of jackets could be worn over one's ensemble. One common style is a lined ao with a square collar, which is usually fastened with buttons or ties. Imperial edicts banned common women from wearing bright red, yellow, or blue, which were reserved for wives of officials. Wearing clothing above one's station was called jian yue and put one at risk of dismemberment. Jian se, secondary colors such as purple and green, were popular. As the dynasty progressed, the Ming gradually opened its borders to international trade, resulting in foreign silver pouring in. Merchants made record profits and people started getting ideas of dressing above their station. Sleeves started expanding. Pipa-shaped sleeves, a signature of the Ming, grew in popularity. Officials' wives wore da xiu shan, tops with large sleeves that usually had a standing collar. The hemline of tops also prepped downwards, inciting moral panic among the literati. You see, women's tops were supposed to be waist-length, unlike men's, which could be full-length. If a woman's robe were to cover her lower garment, she could be, shock and horror, mistaken for a man. The blurring of men and women's dress was just one of the examples of fu yao, outrageous dress. Displays of extravagance could also garner accusations of fu yao. Government officials considered the fast-changing fashions of the late Ming a symptom of a decaying hedonistic society. Fashions that once changed every few decades had started changing every three or four years. The term shi yang or shi shi zhuang, similar to what fashion means, came into use. The fashions of courtesans started to dictate fashion trends. Unbound by the strictures of they were more able to move around freely in public, accompanying men on pleasure jaunts to tourist hotspots. They also demanded fashionable clothes and luxurious jewelry from their clients. Women from respectable families strove to emulate them in a bid to claw back favor from their errant husbands. One prominent example of women's extravagance is in jewelry. Thanks to strict Neo-Confucian values and the increasing prevalence of foot binding, women were mostly cloistered in the home. But the growth of commercialized trade meant that they could make good money from selling the embroidery they produced at home, which they used to buy clothes and jewelry. On the few occasions that they could freely leave the home, such as for temple festivities, they armed themselves in jewelry, makeup, and luxurious fabrics, trying their best to outdo each other. Gold, silver, and gilt jewelry inlaid with colorful precious stones abound in the Ming. Well-off women could hire hairdressers to see to their complicated hairdos. Hairpieces made from real and thick hair, as well as wire-bun cages called jiuji, played host to a dazzling array of hairpins and combs. Headbands, either of plain black silk or heavily ornamented with pearls and jewelry, finished the look. Besides hairpins, earrings, rings, and bangles, Ming women had a new form of jewelry—buttons. Gold and silver buttons called zimukou, occasionally inlaid with gemstones, adorned the tall standing collars of ao and shan. The appearance of these interlocking buttons foreshadowed the prevalence of knot buttons in Even as women enjoyed the benefits of the commercial economy, they were reduced to commodities themselves. Polygyny and concubinage increased competition between women and furthered men's treatment of women as objects. In a time where a woman was expected to cover every inch of skin, clothing became the second skin through which her social identity was constructed. In the Ming literary classic Jinpingmei, clothing is used as a shorthand for character description. The exquisite depictions of dress and toilette not only denote a woman's place in society, but also show how clothing can be used as a tool to vie for status and affection within her home.