#chinese clothing

随笔画的陈后主妖妃张丽华。野史《南部烟花记》中的记载：陈后主为张贵妃丽华造桂宫于光昭殿后，做圆门如月，障以水晶，后庭设素粉罘罳。庭中空洞无他物，惟植一桂树，树下置药杆臼，使丽华恒驯一白兔。丽华被素袿裳，梳凌云髻，插白通草苏孕子，靸玉华飞头履，时独步于中，谓之月宫。帝每入宴乐，呼丽华为张嫦娥。
袿裳，或袿衣，是古代女人的一种敝屣，也就是吊在腿前的布，像围裙又不是围裙。南北朝的袿裳流行杂裾，上面缝有三角的燕尾与飘带，后期简化成了很长的燕尾。凌云髻是一种高耸如入云霄的发髻，南北朝的女人开始流行把头发梳成发鬟，凌云髻到了南北朝可能就是单环的发髻。南北朝出土的文物没有特定的“飞头履”，所以这里的鞋是我自己随便画的。白通草苏孕子就是通草做得假花，插在头发里做装饰。南北朝流行服装是大袖襦裙，内衬白色曲领汗衫，女人带披子，可以纯属作为装饰的彩带，也可以在天冷时用夹棉披子做围巾。《妆台记》说陈朝后宫戴即晕妆，就是把双颊擦满胭脂的浓妆，不过张丽华为了表示嫦娥的清淡飘逸，大概会淡妆一点。除了胭脂外，从南北朝一直到宋朝，女子化妆还有各种贴在面上的装饰。南北朝后期，北方北齐流行淡妆，隋朝后来为了节俭也是提倡淡妆，但是这里还是用了一直很流行的斜红和花钿。

A sloppy sketch of one of Chinese History’s most infamous women, the last Emperor of Chen’s concubine, Zhang Lihua. According to the semi-historical “Record of Southern Decadence”, Emperor Chen would dress Lihua as the goddess of the moon, wearing “a white swallow-tail hem, hair combed into a Rising Cloud Bun, decorated with white pith paper imitation flowers, and wearing Jade Splendor-ed Flying Head shoes.” She lived in a “Moon Palace”, which had a round crystal-gated door, and a back garden that only had one sweet osamanthus tree, under which there was a mortar and pestle for grinding herbs, reflecting the myth of the goddess living with an osamanthus tree and a rabbit that constantly pounded out the elixir of immortality. To complete the myth set, she owned a white rabbit.
Swallow tail hems are sort of Ancient Chinese decorative apron, from the Northern and Southern Dynasties period, deriving from a stylized and ceremonialized version of the loincloth. A Rising Cloud Bun is a sort of hooped hairdo. In addition to the above stated clothing, the general style for women’s dress was a white, round collared undershirt, a long-sleeved blouse and skirt combo, and a ribbon that could be used as decoration or a neck scarf. The semihistorical “Record of the Make-up Mirror” states that the Chen Dynasty imperial harem generally wore “drunken blush” make-up, where thick blush would be slathered on to make the cheeks seem very red, as if the woman was drunk with wine. However, Zhang Lihua is imitating the moon goddess, known for elegant simplicity, so her make-up might be lighter. In the sketch, she has the popular “xiehong”, a sort of facial decoration where two crescent marks are cut from cloth and pasted on the temples, or directly painted on, supposedly to imitate a scar that a favorite concubine of a certain emperor had. She also has a “hua-dian”, a forehead flower decoration, in her case, in the shape of a moon.