Gorgeous Dress and Accessories in the Qin and Han Dynasties

In the Qin and Han dynasties (221 B.C. - 220 A.D.), people became more style-conscious and wanted more elaborate clothing. According to historical records, while Emperor Wendi of the Han Dynasty was on the throne (179 - 156 B.C.), in noble families even the servants wore expensive jewelry. In the Roadside Mulberry, a poem included in a Han Dynasty collection of folk songs and ballads, the hairstyle and dress of Luo Fu - a woman who was collecting mulberry leaves - was described:

Her hair was done in a bun,
Moon-like pearl earrings adorned her ears.
She donned a light-yellow damask skirt,
And wore a purple blouse to match.

The blouse reached to the waist and usually was worn with a hemless skirt made of four pieces of plain silk, narrow at the top and wide at the bottom, with two strings sewn to both ends of the silk top.

Men's garments in the Qin and Han dynasties could be divided into pleated and non-pleated. People of higher ranks wore robes, and officials usually wore robes without a lining. Robes had wide sleeves and open collars, both with hands. To facilitate their work, ordinary men wore tight cotton jackets with narrow cuffs, a plain gauze robe unearthed from the No.1 Han Tomb at Mawangdui in Changsha, Hunan Province, was discovered to be "as thin and delicate as a cicada's wing and as light as smoke and fog," weighing less than 50 grams. Dating back to over 2,000 years, the robe is still strong in texture and brilliant in color. It demonstrates the excellent textile techniques of the Qin and Han dynasties.