Original title:
Horse-faced skirt: a colorful embroidery that has amazed thousands of years
Jia Xizeng
In recent times, the long history has merged with contemporary The horse-faced skirt with life aesthetics has become the top trend of "national style", leading the new Chinese fashion trend and witnessing the growing cultural confidence in people's hearts.
How long is the history of the horse-faced skirt? How many changes has it experienced? How does it embody the ancient Chinese clothing wisdom and aesthetic style?
——Editor
The horse-faced skirt is a very classic and representative style in traditional Chinese clothing. It has a long history, unique appearance and exquisite craftsmanship. , with reasonable functions, embodies the humanistic thought of Chinese traditional clothing culture integrating beauty and use, and conveying truth through writing.
In terms of shape structure, the horse-faced skirt consists of a skirt waist and two rectangular skirts. There is a skirt door on the left and right sides of each skirt (two skirts, a total of four skirt doors). When wearing, the skirt doors of the two skirts overlap at the front and middle parts of the back to form an inner and outer skirt door. The shape is overlapping and covering each other, with only two horse-faced skirt doors visible on the outside. Its style is similar to the two-piece spiral skirt of the Song Dynasty. The horse-faced skirts of the Ming Dynasty had live pleats on both sides. The skirts of the horse-faced skirts of the Qing Dynasty had no pleats or had fine pleats one centimeter wide, or were quilted and fixed between the fine pleats to form fish-scale pleats; the skirts of the horse-faced skirts of the Ming Dynasty There are decorative ruffles. The horse-faced skirts of the Qing Dynasty are embroidered with decorative patterns such as flowers and birds on the exposed skirt door and skirt body, while the inner skirt door is undecorated. The patterns of the horse-faced skirt are mainly concentrated on the hem of the skirt. They are complex at the bottom and gradually simplified at the top. The pattern themes are all patterns with beautiful meanings and the patterns are combined with each other.
The horse-faced skirt’s body opening and closing method, skirt door stacking, pleat structure, pattern decoration, cultural connotation and other factors combine to form its coexistence of movement, concealment, decoration and etiquette. Characteristics can be said to be the embodiment of the highly developed unique clothing wisdom and aesthetic characteristics of the ancient Chinese. Despite the development of society and the changes of times, people's lifestyles and dressing habits have undergone tremendous changes. However, the horse-faced skirt has lasted for hundreds of years and still exudes unique charm. It is not only loved by fans of traditional clothing and Hanfu, but also internationally. The fashion stage is valued and sought after by Western fashion brands and designers.
The intersecting style of the skirt and door of the horse-faced skirt is both mobile and ceremonial
The horse-faced skirt, also known as the enemy platform, pier and wall platform, was the earliest It is found in "Bei Lai" and "Bei Gaolin" in "Mozi". It is named after its long and narrow appearance like a horse's face. It is a T-shaped structure that sticks out of the city wall. It can form an angle with the city wall to eliminate the blind spots under the city and attack the enemy from three sides from top to bottom. The Shimao site, "the largest city in prehistoric China" in Shenmu County, Yulin City, Shaanxi Province, contains the earliest existing physical site of a horse face.
The use of "horse face" in clothing can be seen in the Ming Dynasty eunuch Liu Ruoyu's "Yisa" record in "Ziuzhongzhi": "It has a continuous skirt at the back, and swings on both sides, with two sections at the front. There are horse pleats underneath and ears on both sides. "Yisa" is a kind of robe, also called "Yisa"."Yi" and "Yisha", it is made into a skirt-style robe, which was originally a light and agile garment for military service. It is made of gauze, Luo, Guan and silk, with a large lapel and long sleeves. The shape of the front and back body of the garment is different, the back body is a whole piece; the front body is divided into two parts, the upper part of the waist is the same as the back part, and the lower part of the waist has fine pleats on both sides, and the middle is not folded, shaped like a horse's face, and the two armpits are decorated with pendulums.
The style of the horse-faced skirt with the front and back doors covering each other can be traced back to the "spiral skirt" of the Song Dynasty that "opened the hips at the front and back." "History of the Song Dynasty" Biography No. 246 records: "Spiral skirts overlap, and more wins." According to Sima Guang's records, "whirl skirts" were popular among prostitutes in Kyoto in the early Song Dynasty because they were easy to ride. Among the scholars and common people. The actual object is a brown peony flower lace skirt unearthed from Huang Sheng's tomb in Fuzhou. It is 83 cm long, 11.7 cm waist, 123 cm wide waist, and 133 cm wide hem. "Four pieces of material are used to separate the seams, and each two pieces are vertically seamed. Join them into pieces, and then stack them up and down according to their width. The middle piece is larger than the two sides. The top is seamed, and the hem is not sewn. The two layers of the skirt can be separated freely with a skirt waist attached at both ends. " Because it covers the front and back and can be opened and closed freely, it is easy to wear in daily life. When the wearer takes a slightly larger step, the skirts on both sides will naturally separate, making movement very convenient. This two-piece structure was inherited by the horse-faced skirts of the Ming Dynasty and the horse-faced skirts of the Qing Dynasty. The pattern of the intersecting skirt doors is similar to the structure of the slit robe popular in ancient China. It not only facilitates movement, but also covers the body without exposing the underwear, and has good etiquette.
The horse-faced skirt is a characteristic dress of women in the Ming Dynasty. It is characterized by the emphasis on pleats and decorative ruffles
The horse-faced skirt of the Ming Dynasty women's skirt is characterized by the emphasis on pleats and decorative ruffles. Skirts are the most popular and well-known. "Jiajing Taikang County Chronicle" records: "In the Hongzhi period, women's clothes only covered the waist of the skirt; rich use of Luo, satin, yarn, and silk were used to weave gold-colored sleeves, and the skirts were made of gold-colored knee pads, and their buns were more than an inch high. During the Zhengde period, the clothes The skirt gradually became larger, with more pleats, the shirt was patched with gold colors, and the bun became higher. In the early Jiajing period, the clothes were as large as the knees, and the skirt was short and had fewer pleats..." This became a record of the popularity of horse-faced skirts during the Jiajing period. In the silk color painting "Ming Xianzong's Lantern Festival Carnival" created by an unknown painter of the Ming Dynasty, many concubines wearing horse-faced skirts appear.
The horse-faced skirt of the Ming Dynasty was divided into two pieces, the front and back, with a skirt waist. The overlapping part in the middle was pleated-free, and the skirt door was in the shape of a rectangular "horse-faced" skirt. Another important feature of the horse-faced skirts of the Ming Dynasty is the pleats on both sides of the skirt door, which greatly increases the movement space of the skirt and makes the skirt better usable. In fact, such objects as the camel-colored lotus satin skirt unearthed from the Ming tomb at No. 618 Changxindian, Fengtai District, Beijing, in the middle Ming Dynasty, and the camel-colored lotus satin ground, composed of two large pieces, each 221 cm, made of skirt material Three and a half panels, 60 cm wide. The waist of the skirt is covered with a silk singlet, with a loop on each side, a ribbon at each end of the waist, and three pairs of pleats on the two hips. The skirt is 12 cm wide and decorated with flowers and birds. Another example is the brocade satin horse-faced skirt unearthed from the tomb of Prince Ningjing’s wife Wu, which is 78 centimeters long. The skirt is made of two pieces of cloth overlapped to the waist. Each piece of cloth is made of three and a half pieces of fabric, with a width of 60 centimeters. centimeter.
Mid and late Ming Dynasty, horse-faced skirtThere are different ways of decorating the "祕decoration" in it. The bottom of the skirt and the knees are decorated with wide edges with various patterns, called "襥". The structure of "襕" originated from the popular upper and lower deep clothing from the Warring States Period to the Han Dynasty. The 襥robe appeared in the Sui Dynasty. In the Song dynasty, the "襥" in the 襥shirt refers to the "patchwork" stitching at the hem of the garment.
Due to the different parts of the decoration, the "gust decoration" of horse-faced skirts in the Ming Dynasty can be divided into knee ruffles at the knees and bottom ruffles at the hem of the skirt. Those who use gold thread to make embroidery ornaments are called "golden embroidery". One of the real objects is a Ming Dynasty Ruyi cloud satin-woven gold pleated single skirt unearthed from the Wangluo family tomb in Wujin. The skirt is 92 cm long, the waist is 116 cm wide, the hem is 120 cm wide, and the horse face is 31.6 cm wide. The fabric is yellow-green damask. There are 8 pleats on each side of the skirt, with a horse face and no waist. The middle part of the skirt is woven with twisted gold thread with a 11.3 cm wide ribbon, decorated with Liuji, lotus, vases and flag-like patterns. The hem is woven with twisted gold thread and has a 6.5 cm wide banner-like decorative belt.
Double-necked horse-faced skirts became popular in the middle and late Ming Dynasty. At this time, women's coats were as long as the knees, even only five inches off the ground. During the Jiajing period, long women's coats were most popular. Since the knee pads are covered by the top, the bottom pads gradually become larger. In fact, objects such as the Ming Dynasty blue intertwined four-season floral satin skirt with gold makeup stored in the Shandong Museum are known as the "benchmark" of horse-faced skirts handed down from the Ming Dynasty. The skirt is 88 cm long, with a waist circumference of 104 cm. The upper part is inlaid with red gauze skirt waist, and the knee darts of blue satin brocade are decorated with four-season flowers. There are three skirt darts on the bottom, from top to bottom: woven gold cloud pattern, phoenix pattern. The phoenix is woven with peonies and colorful silk threads and is woven with peonies and lotuses.
The styles of horse-faced skirts in the Qing Dynasty were rich, among which the pleats were replaced by strips of ruffles, which had a three-dimensional effect
In the Qing Dynasty, horse-faced skirts Skirts became very popular and became the daily and iconic dress of Han women, and were further subdivided into styles such as pimple skirts, fish scale horse face skirts, and phoenix tail skirts.
The pleated structure of the horse skirt in the Ming Dynasty was used to increase the activity space by folding rectangular fabrics. In the Qing Dynasty, it was replaced by the process of splicing triangular or trapezoidal fabrics and decorating the seams with ruffles, which was called "襕干skirt". The actual object is a three-blue embroidered side pleated skirt on Qingjiang purple satin from the Tsinghua University Art Museum. It is 97 cm long and 107 cm wide at the hem. The skirt door is embroidered with peonies using three-blue flat stitch, three-blue embroidery and gold plate embroidery. , eight treasure patterns and sea water river cliff teeth. Another example is the sapphire blue satin appliqué embroidered horse-faced skirt of Lifelong Wealth from the Qing Dynasty, which is 97 cm long and 144 cm wide at the hem. The skirt door is decorated with a combination of wealth and peace patterns of aquariums and peonies, and is inlaid with black rhizome, and vertical strips of peonies are decorated in the rump. and Aquarius pattern.
Li Dou of the Qing Dynasty recorded in "Yangzhou Painted Boat Records" that the daily clothing of Yangzhou women included "jade skirts" with "twenty-four pleats". The actual object is a horse-faced skirt with apricot red and dark floral silk ground embroidered with peonies and butterflies in the Tsinghua University Art Museum. It is 99 cm long and 88 cm wide at the hem. The front skirt door is fully embroidered with peonies, plum blossoms, butterflies and other patterns, and is inlaid with black and blue ground embroidered flowers. The lace is pleated on both sides of the skirt, and the bottom of each pleat is colorfully embroidered with branches and floral patterns, and is inlaid with a total of 24 laces. The apricot red silk skirt has a black ruffle and a yarn direction ofDiagonally, the yarn direction is perpendicular to the bottom edge, and the black quills on the horse face also adopt the same direction, showing a satin glossy texture. The black quill not only has the function of covering the splicing lines of the skirt, but can also reinforce the shape of the skirt through different yarn directions, and is conducive to the formation of an "expanded cone" modeling effect.
Pleated horse-faced skirts were also popular in the Qing Dynasty. The pleats on both sides were pressed toward the middle. Each pleat was only about one centimeter wide and the pleats were fixed. They were called "shunfeng pleats" at that time. Tsinghua University Art Museum collection of clear red dark floral silk ground embroidery landscape plum butterfly pattern pleated fish scale horse-face skirt, 97 cm long, 76 cm wide hem, 50 fine pleats on each side, the sum of which is exactly 100, is A true "pleated skirt". The front skirt and the center of the back skirt are embroidered with patterns such as "Qilin sends his son", "Five sons win the first prize" and "Official belt passes on". The skirt door has a wide border and is decorated with four layers of trim from the inside to the outside. The fourth layer is white satin ground stitch embroidery with branch lace, and is made into a Ruyi cloud head pattern in the middle part of the skirt door.
In order to prevent these fine pleats from being scattered and out of shape, the pleats are fixed in a certain way with fine thread quilting. When the wearer walks, the pleats look like fish scales, so it is called "fish scale hundred". pleated skirt". The vertical pleats are fixedly sewn every two centimeters, and the transverse pleat stitching points are staggered up and down, and so on. The entire pleat surface is elastic and movable pleats. The "fish scale pleats" are delicate and even, and are quite beautiful. The actual object is a pleated fish scale skirt with flat gold embroidered floral pattern on lotus root and lotus silk from the Tsinghua University Art Museum. It is 87 cm long and 60 cm wide at the hem. The front skirt door is decorated with flat gold embroidered flowers, inlaid with organic butterfly lace, and pleated on both sides. , the pleats are fine, the pleats of the skirt are decorated with ribbons, and the ends of the ribbons are decorated with Ruyi cloud heads, and are decorated with metal beads and moon-white threads.
The "Yuehua skirt" with multi-color pleated and colorful satin patchwork was also a trendy item in the Qing Dynasty. Because it was too labor-intensive and material-intensive, Li Yu from the Qing Dynasty called the Yuehua Skirt "10 times more artificial and material than regular skirts. It goes without saying that it is a waste of natural resources." Included in the collection of the China Silk Museum is a bright red dark floral silk moonlight skirt. Two overlapping pieces form a skirt door. There are two edges on the horse face and skirt hem. The outer one is blue plain satin with colorful embroidery of folded branches and peony flowers. The white plain The inner strip is a black satin ribbon with butterfly flowers, longevity peach and grape patterns, and is edged with blue and white woven lace. The pleats on both sides of the skirt are made of ten colors of silk fabrics: green, silver grey, purple, orange, white, blue, rose red, yellow, light pink and water red. The skirt is colorful and bright when the wind blows. The moon halo shines brightly.
The phoenix tail skirt of the Qing Dynasty is a strip-shaped female skirt made of colorful strips of cloth connected to the waist. It was popular from the Kangxi to Qianlong years of the Qing Dynasty. It is also named because its end is sharp and resembles a phoenix tail. Two of them are wider, and the rest are made into narrow strips. Each strip is embroidered with different patterns, and both sides are inlaid with rolled gold thread or decorated with lace. The back is fixed with colored strips and the skirt waist is embellished. It must be worn with a petticoat, which is mostly worn by young women from wealthy families. It is also worn by commoner women when they get married. The phoenix tail skirt is often worn as an accessory to the horse-faced skirt. Later, it was connected with long clothes and evolved into ceremonial wedding clothes and "dance clothes" in opera performances, such as those in the Qing Dynasty.The phoenix tail part is made of double-layered phoenix tail embroidery pieces. It is rich in color and exquisitely embroidered, and is very gorgeous.
(The author is a doctoral supervisor in the Dyeing, Weaving and Fashion Art Design Department of the Academy of Fine Arts, Tsinghua University)
Source: Wenhui Po
