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| A model shows off clothing and make-up worn during Wu Zetian's time as emperor of China (690-705). Photos: Courtesy of Zhuangshu and Yuewu |
After period drama The Empress of China was re-edited because China's government watchdog deemed the clothing worn by the show's actresses was too revealing, a debate on about TV censorship of necklines spread across the Internet. With the show taking place during the Tang Dynasty (618-907), a cosmopolitan period of openness that made China one of the greatest cultural centers of the world at the time, many wondered why it would be seen as inappropriate in today's modern age to show a bit of cleavage as their ancestors did.
Many of the show's viewers have seen the re-editing as a huge blow to fans of fashion, as the solution to solving the cleavage problem has been to zoom in the faces of the actresses in any seen where the offending cleavage appears. This of course makes it extraordinarily difficult for fans to appreciate the period clothing used in this costume drama, something that is actually a pretty big highlight for shows such as these. According to media reports, Fan Bingbing ¬- the actress playing Wu Zetian, China's first and only female emperor - has 260 dresses, while the number of all the costumes for other characters in the TV drama is nearly 3,000.
However, while viewers were sighing over these stunning dresses before the re-editing tookplace, historians who study the period pointed out many of the details that the show's clothing designers got wrong. According to them, while women during the Tang weren't shy about showing a bit of skin, it was nothing like the way the TV show portrays.
Teasing not squeezing
During the early days when Wu Zetian was still just one of Emperor Tang Taizong's concubines, women's dresses were still very similar to the previous Sui Dynasty (581-618): conservative with high necklines. One type of hat, called mili, had a very long veil that covered a woman's face and body, allowing the wearer to see the world while staying hidden and was once very popular among women, according to Zhang Guogang, a history professor from Tsinghua University and former director of The Tang Dynasty Institute of China.
However, things eventually changed as the atmosphere of the whole society became more open. Some outgoing women chose to no longer wear the mili as they didn't mind if strangers saw their faces and were even confident enough to wear clothing that was a bit more revealing.
Liu Shuai from Zhuangshu and Yuewu, a folk art team that has dedicated itself to recreating ancient arts such as clothing, told the Global Times that some people's ideas about the Tang Dynasty are not that accurate, such as the dynasties supposed aesthetic preference for full-bodied women."They didn't started off preferring voluptuous figures at the beginning of the Tang Dynasty. This preference only started to spread after Wu Zetian's rule and became especially prevalent during Emperor Tang Xuanzong's rule."
"We can see from wall paintings that their hair buns were tall and they displayed their necks and wore low neckline dresses, but they did not wear things that squeezed their breasts [to make them look bigger]," explained Zhang, pointing out the difference between history and the show.
Feminist time
Zhang told the Global Times that the dresses of Tang Dynasty actually incorporated a lot of elements from the ethnic Hu style, which did not focus on revealing skin but was more similar to a modern jacket. "Some fashionable girls in Tang Dynasty even wore men's clothing. The dresses in some TV dramas are designed in an exaggerated way."
When Wu Zetian reigned as emperor, ideas about female empowerment spread throughout the country and reached a peak. "There was a trend that made women feel confident enough that they decided to wear whatever they liked and reveal their skin whenever they wanted," said Liu.
Liu prefers to think of the fashion during this time as similar to a modern office lady's simplistic style as women didn't wear as much jewelry in their hair as is depicted on TV.
"It was possible that for women under Wu's rule, their destiny was no longer only decided with a dress. They started to see a promising rising social stature. The simplicity of this fashion is actually a time of feminism with strong self-respect among women."
Zhang also explained that relationships were freer during the Tang Dynasty. Women could easily remarry and society lacked the virgin complex that cropped up during later periods, and so sex before marriage was acceptable for many people.
Looking to history
One good thing the controversy about the TV drama is that it has put real history back into center stage. Zhuangshu and Yuewu was first established in 2007. Looking to recover traditional arts, they began making clothing using traditional styles and materials while also studying the make-up used in the past. As the team's clothing designer, Liu produces clothes that he tries to make as close to the originals as possible.
Some of the photos of the team's work have shocked many people online as the depicted clothing and make-up are very different than that seen on TV.
Though many people's knowledge of ancient history and fashion comes from period dramas, Liu insisted that no TV dramas have yet to successfully depict historically accurate clothing and so urges people to turn instead to the many studies on traditional clothing written by scholars that can be found in bookstores if people truly want to know what was fashionable several centuries ago.
Xiong Yuqing Source:
Global Times Published
