Ancient Chinese clothing

Ming dynasty (1400s AD)
painting by Tang Yin
People in China generally wore tunics (like long t-shirts). Women wore long tunics down to the ground, with belts, and men wore shorter ones down to their knees. Sometimes they wore jackets over their tunics. In the winter, when it was cold, people wore padded jackets over their tunics, and sometimes pants under them. In early China, poor people made their clothes of hemp or ramie. Rich people wore silk.

Most people in China, both men and women, wore their hair long. People said that you got your hair from your parents and so it was disrespectful to cut it.

During the Sui Dynasty, in the 500s AD, the emperor decided that all poor people had to wear blue or black clothes, and only rich people could wear colors.

X-ray pictures of someone with bound feet and a diagram

In the Sung Dynasty, about 1100 AD, a fashion started at the emperor's court for women to bind their feet. Women thought that to be beautiful they needed little tiny feet, only about three inches long. They got these tiny feet by wrapping tight bandages around the feet of little girls, about five or six years old.

A shoe for someone with bound feet

The bandages were so tight they broke the girls’ toes and bent them underneath their feet and then they had to walk on them like that. The girls spent most of their time crying for two or three years and then the feet stopped hurting so much. Women with bound feet couldn’t walk very well at all, and when they had to work in the fields often they would crawl. Some of the earliest versions of the story of Cinderella come from Sung Dynasty China. In these versions, the point of the story is that the Prince loves Cinderella because she has the smallest feet of any girl in the kingdom, so the slipper will only fit her.
Then in the Yuan Dynasty, the Mongols brought cotton to China. At first people didn’t want to grow cotton, maybe because the people running the silk industry wanted to keep people buying silk. But the Mongol invasions in the 1200’s destroyed a lot of the mulberry trees that were needed to make silk. The Mongol emperors, like Kublai Khan, turned to cotton to fill the gap. In 1289 AD they ordered the opening of special training centers to teach farmers how to grow cotton. And in 1296 they ordered that farmers who grew cotton could pay lower taxes. Soon everyone liked cotton better than ramie or hemp. Cotton was warmer, and softer, and stronger, and cheaper. You could make it thin for summer, or you could make thick padded clothes out of it that were warm for winter.

To find out more about ancient Chinese clothing, check out these books from Amazon or from your library:

Shop The Egyptian Styles Of Katy Perry's Music Video 'Dark Horse:' Fashion Fame

(Photo : Dark Horse)

Katy Perry is known for her over-the-top music videos. Who could forget her Candy Land themed "California Girls" or jungle set "Roar" videos? For her single "Dark Horse," the pop-star once again didn't fail to bring her visual and fashion A-game.

The video, which features rapper Juicy J, has a whimsical Egyptian theme with Katy as a Nefertiti meets Cleopatra type goddess. Although at first glance, it may seem like an odd connection between song and concept, the clip's director says there's good reason for the Egyptian references.
"[Katy] said that there's actually a place in Egypt called Memphis, and she thought it was so interesting that Juicy J is from Memphis, Tenn.," explains director Mathew Cullen to Times Magazine. "She basically came to me and said, 'I want to do something Egyptian and I want to combine it with Memphis hip-hop.' That's music to my ears - when an artist has a couple concepts that they want to mash up to create something fresh."

But even with this historical backdrop, Katy manages to interject her own style. Surrounded by men painted blue, the 28-year-old is seen in bright colorful ensembles (who knew neon pink and grills were so big in the pyramid days), elaborate headpieces, heavy gold accessories, glittery wings and traditional Egyptian turquoise eye make-up. The eye of rah, pharaohs, snakes, cats and other classic Egyptian symbols pop up all over the video as well.

Inspired by her ancient tribute, we are exploring modernized Egyptian styles in stores now. Watch the video below and then shop the slideshow above to get the look.