The Qin Dynasty was the first unified dynasty in Chinese history, but because it was so far away from us, people were not very familiar with this dynasty. In the Qin Dynasty there is no official revision of the history books, more or rely on the works of Sima Qian and others to understand, some tombs related to the Qin Dynasty are also less, the number of excavated cultural relics is limited, people want to understand the life of the Qin people at that time, there are indeed some difficulties, but people are always interested in some mysterious and long-term things, and the Qin Dynasty is also an important period of Chinese civilization, its culture and system for the development of the entire Chinese nation plays an important role, understand some of its customs and habits, It is good for us to understand our own civilization.
How about the women's costumes of the Qin Dynasty?
During the Qin Dynasty, people's living conditions were certainly slightly worse, and the development of society was not as good as that of later generations, but the Qin Dynasty still had some characteristics. For example, their costumes are very different from later generations, here is just to study the women's costumes of the Qin Dynasty, the Qin Dynasty costumes have developed very well, some of the popular costumes at that time, now people are also very familiar, that is, the famous Hanfu, Hanfu began to rise during the Zhou Dynasty, and has been greatly developed in the Qin Dynasty. In the court, the number of concubines and palace ladies of Qin Shi Huang was very large, and these people also had different gorgeous costumes, and the colors were extremely bright.
Compared with these court ladies, the folk costumes are relatively ordinary, and the women of the Qin Dynasty are generally skirts, everything is based on simplicity, the clothes on the upper body are shorter, and the lower skirts are divided into straight and curved hems. At that time, women's skirts were mainly focused on large plackets and narrow sleeves, and then women tied them with ribbons at the waist, and the color was low-key and simple. Because the men of the Qin Dynasty generally wore white clothes, there was a white body, specifically referring to the commoners, and the color of women's clothes was relatively more, but in addition to these women in the court, folk women generally could not use too bright colors.
Deep coats
In addition, women at that time also liked to wear deep clothes, which began to develop in the Han Dynasty, but in the Qin Dynasty, people were already very fond of wearing it. Deep coat is a kind of one-piece long coat, and the general skirt is obviously different, this is a kind of dress commonly used by the women of the dynasty, wearing this kind of clothing is often to tie their own waist tightly, fixed with a silk belt, the style is curved around the knee type and straight hem, according to the different skirts around the knee, and divided into narrow sleeves, wide sleeves two categories.
According to the different grades of these women, to determine the different styles of their deep clothes, the status of women in the folk is not so high, and there is no such condition, their clothes are relatively simple, but the general style is still imitating deep clothes. In general, deep clothes and skirts were the main costumes worn by women at that time, and some women would wear pants underneath, which had already appeared in the Warring States period, but the practice was still relatively simple.
This kind of clothing did not really popularize, the women at that time, in addition to the noblewomen and the general commoners, there is a type of full-time song and dance geisha, in the early Qin and Han murals, there have been descriptions of the dancers, it can be seen that in the Qin Dynasty and even earlier warring states, there have been such women, they due to the particularity of the profession, the clothes worn are not the same as ordinary women, often wear robes, in the original cuffs will also be a section of false sleeves, which and later opera costumes are similar, They wear this kind of clothing is very troublesome, and wearing on the body is also very tired, very inconvenient to move, but this is for performance, no one will be stupid to wear such clothes in ordinary life, specially customized such a set of clothing, the price is also very expensive, the average family certainly does not have this capital.
Skirt
However, these styles of clothing, the most commonly used is the skirt, after which the skirt has also become a common costume for ancient women, until the Ming Dynasty, until the establishment of the Qing Dynasty, the habit of wearing skirts gradually disappeared. Most of the Hanfu sisters we see now are dressed in skirts, and the Qin Dynasty did not have such a concept as Hanfu, after all, at the beginning of the Wei and Jin Dynasties, Hanfu gradually became a systematic concept. Hanfu in the Spring and Autumn Warring States period appeared a variety of styles, of which the skirt has a lot of styles, the Qin Dynasty period of production technology and textile technology have a lot of improvement, so can produce better workmanship of women's clothing, but the Qin Dynasty it did not have so much impact on clothing, after all, its existence time is very short.
Before the establishment of the Qin Dynasty, it was hundreds of years of chaotic wars in the princely states, and these countries all had their own unique languages and cultures, so after the founding of the Qin Shi Huang, the first thing to consider was to unify the language and culture in the country, so that it was convenient for the government to manage. Then in the pre-Qin era, these princely states also had some costumes with their own national characteristics, such as Chu and Qi, which were also deeply influenced by foreign culture, which was somewhat different from the traditional Zhou Dynasty costumes. After the unification of Qin, the emperor would have requirements for folk costumes, but the Qin Dynasty did not really control the locality, and there were still remnants of the Six Kingdoms at that time, and it was difficult for Qin Shi Huang to completely unify culture.
Therefore, many places still retain the original dress habits of various countries, many women's clothing is different from the later Han Dynasty, after the brief existence of the Qin Dynasty, the world returned to the princes of the scuffle, until the establishment of the Han Dynasty, after hundreds of years of changes, it really unified people's clothing. In addition to different styles, the quality of women's clothing in the Qin Dynasty is better than before, many people's clothing is made of silk cloth, the technology at that time was very developed, people have begun to pay attention to the textile industry, a variety of good-looking clothes continue to appear, which also greatly promotes the development of clothing. Of course, all this refers to some women who can still be identified, there is still a kind of tragic women in ancient times, such as women who have a difficult life in mountain villages, their costumes are very bad, do not think that the women of the Qin Dynasty at that time were wearing deep clothes and skirts, in fact, this is a small number of people.
During the Qing Dynasty, there were some old photographs, many of which were very simple because of the poor conditions, dressed unclothed. The Qing Dynasty has been regarded as the best conditions in the ancient dynasty, and the women in their country have no way to wear all the good clothes, so most of the women living in poor families in the Qin Dynasty are wearing some coarse cloth, coarse linen and simple clothes, and it is estimated that they are not clothes, that is, they simply cover up. Others were slaves, and because of their low status, they were even less likely to wear any good clothes, and most slaves were very good to have clothes to wear.
In ancient times, no matter how powerful the dynasty was, people's living standards were still not high, women were not so honorable at that time, they had no status at home, they wanted to wear so many good clothes, which dynasty was impossible to change, even if modern women, with so many beautiful clothes, there are also most people due to the hardships of life, can not wear any decent clothes.
In any case, the times are constantly evolving, and many people in the Qin Dynasty are still living in a stable environment again, and women can also choose more beautiful clothes. Later historians often linked the two dynasties of Qin and Han, and indeed, the Han Dynasty can be seen as a continuation of the Qin, and many of its customs and habits are very similar to the Qin.
There are also many similarities in clothing, at that time, skirts, deep clothes, in the later Han Dynasty became the first choice for women, but the early people still pursued simplicity in dress, and they wore more. Most of them, such as skirts and deep coats, are long and thick, which is also a feature of Hanfu. In the Warring States period, King Wuling of Zhao found that the problem of such costumes, mobility problems will affect a lot of things, so he will choose to introduce Hufu, many countries' costumes have joined the culture of the Hu people, and some costumes have also been reflected, but more costumes are still traditional Hanfu, and later Hanfu is gradually eliminated due to cumbersome shortcomings.
Reference: Chronicle of History