Traditional crafts that are passed on till today were typically embraced and treasured by people, but there is one particular craft that is highly controversial and that is the Kingfisher feather inlay craft, also known as the Dian Cui （点翠） craft.
Most of the pictures on the internet make the jewelry and feathers look extra big, for the purpose of allowing us to see the details of it, but if you have seen an actual Dian Cui piece in person, you would realise that it is actually surprisingly small. This is due to the fact that the Kingfishers are tiny in stature, and their feathers are even tinier, so to inlay them into filigree-based jewelries, you would require quite a lot of the feathers so traditionally they wouldn’t be too big.
Whenever I think of feathers and accessories, I always think of the Native Americans and their sacred headdresses and feather dance. And just like the Native Americans, the Chinese also had a long history of using feathers to accessorise ourselves and for ceremonial dances. There were records of dances that existed some 3,000 years back where they used feathers as props and also for wearing by the dancers.
The use of feathers for shamanistic rituals would have been common in the ancient worlds, and in a particular ancient Chinese culture called the Chu culture (modern day Hunan and Hubei—central China area), there were records of people decorating their wooden jewelry boxes with kingfisher feathers (and flowers, pearls, and jade) about 2,200 years back.
Gradually, about 2,000 years ago, imperial women started to have kingfisher feathers to decorate their walls (yes, what a luxury!), and a few hundred years later, a crown prince used it to decorate his crown. So it was not confined to just jewelry, and it was not just for women.
The earliest visual documentation that I can find, of kingfisher feather being used for accessories by the Chinese, would be the Song dynasty (circa 12th century) Empress in their formal ceremonial wear with their crowns decorated by kingfisher feathers, pearls and other gemstones.
A Chinese period drama in recent years replicated the ceremonial wear for the Song empress, and you can see a more tangible representation of it here:
Of course you could say that you can’t tell much from just a painting, and it could very well be embroidered or silk threads since we have not found any physical proof of it yet. That is definitely a possibility except that the Kingfisher feather industry was a thriving one that was widely documented, and that imperial women were often spotted wearing dresses of kingfisher feathers, or accessories with them to the chagrin of the emperors. Several times during the 12th century, the emperors tried to ban the use of kingfisher feathers precisely for the reason that they found it an unnecessary extravagance that harms the ecosystem, to no avail.
The iridescence and brilliance of the kingfisher feather is seen as unparalleled by any other bird, so there was no way of replacing it with other alternatives.
By the Qing dynasty, the kingfisher feather was everywhere in the accessories of the imperial family. From hairpins to hats, they were lavishly decorated with kingfisher feathers of different shades of blues.
The high demand for kingfisher feathers also meant that more kingfishers have to be killed for it, and eventually it became unsustainable. By the turn of the 20th century, the Chinese were already very familiar with the Cloisonné craft brought in from the west or the Islamic world, and for the commoners, they would use blue and green cloisonné craft on their silver or copper jewelries to create a semblance of kingfisher feather inlay decorated ones.
The last kingfisher factory in China closed in 1933 due to political instability within China and other socio-economic factors.
The Kingfisher feather craft has a bad reputation in recent years because of the rumour that the feathers had to be plucked from birds that were alive, and it was a torturous and slow death for the kingfishers. However, that is a myth. Historically, there were indeed records of plucking the feathers from kingfishers while they were alive, but it was taken out of context. The record mentioned that a few feathers were plucked form the kingfishers and then, the birds were released into the wild. So it implied that the birds were not killed in the process. However, I’m sure that as demands surge, it would be much faster for people to just catch and kill those birds for their feathers, and much more profitable that way.
As part of Yaji Masterclass, we are also going to have an introductory workshop on this traditional jewelry decorating craft using peacock feathers in place of kingfisher so no bird would be harmed in the process. The peacock feather has a really beautiful iridescence to it that changes with light. Since butterflies also have that kind of feathers, I thought it’d be apt to get everyone attending the masterclass to make a pair of butterfly earrings with this technique!
I will also be sharing more about the technical details of this craft, and stories of how famous traditional Chinese Opera singers would own an entire headdress of kingfisher feathers of the finest quality, and one that would cost you a fortune.
If you’re interested to learn this craft with us on the 24 Sep 2022 (Sat), you can get a ticket HERE. Your ticket comes with all that you need for this craft, and you can bring the tools home to make more of your own accessories with feather inlays!
In case you think that I’m angry over the Dior vs Hanfu Mamian incident —I’m not. I’m more intrigued and somewhat amused by how low they stooped, especially since the Western brands and public have always mocked the Chinese for copying.
And once upon a time, there was a famous Chinese Haute Couturier who copied quite blatantly as well.
It would be hypocritical for me to commit one article on Dior and not one the other way round (this person copies Dior quite extensively while it was still under the direction of John Galliano).
So here is just a very quick visual treat, which kind of looks like the Expectation vs Reality gallery for items purchased on SHEIN or Taobao. LOL
ROBERTO CAVALLI 2005 FALL
Let’s start with the hot favourite of mine. I love the Ming blue and white porcelain dress, so much so that I actually had one of my pre-wedding shot in it (even though I never had a wedding, but yes, pre-wedding shots are a MUST). I don’t think I need to indicate which is the original. Of course this said Chinese Haute Couturier later on made a couple more of blue and white vase inspired dresses with worldwide success, but I think it’s important to acknowledge the original designer and her copycat past, just to be fair. The Haute Couturier has even earned a nickname in China in the early days as “Copycat <Insert Family Name>”
And she copied not one, but two! And tried to be original by lengthening the skirt and added more loose fabric at the side. It’s like trying to cheat during an exam but appearing that you’re not by repeating the last sentence of your answer a few more times, hoping the examiner doesn’t find out.
DIOR 2005 FALL
This copying attempt made me laugh. The wearer appeared in the Spring Festival Celebration Show in early 2006, and the Chinese Haute Couturier lamented during an interview later on that she was at the end of her designing phase when Dior showcased their 2005 Fall collection. If lying isn’t her specialty, then it must’ve been telepathy.
VALENTINO 2007 SPRING/SUMMER
I think this Chinese Haute Couturier must’ve been high on mushrooms when she decided to copy Valentino and bloat it up a little, just to appear more original.
VALENTINO 2007 FALL
Maybe some wouldn’t call this plagiarism cos, she changed the length of the skirt…and added some embroidered details… It’s up to you to decide. I’m on camp Guilty-as-charged.
DIOR 2007 FALL
While this Chinese Haute Couturier is known for her promotion of the Chinese embroidery work, to be honest, her craftsmanship level isn’t that great. I’ve seen the actual products and was appalled by the quality of work. It’s the kind of things that looks great afar or on camera, but if you get closer, particularly if you know wat are good embroidery work, you would be greatly disappointed.
As another Chinese Fashion KOL commented during our exchange, the quality is so poor that you might as well get it machine embroidered. So.. quantity does not mean quality, and cheap labour doesn’t get you the finesse you hope for.
18TH CENTURY FRENCH DRESS
Since the Chinese are upset (rightfully) over the appropriation of the Hanfu Mamian skirt by Dior, they must feel somewhat consoled that this Chinese Haute Couturier has avenged them with this copy. Although, I am of the opinion that two wrongs don’t make one right! And it could also be argued that it is everyone knows that it is the French court style in the design of the Chinese designer, but nobody would know the Ming Mamian skirt was used in Dior’s design.
1930s CHINESE PERANAKAN WEDDING DRESS
If appropriating the West is justified because nobody would mistake it for a Chinese garment, then this following appropriation might be up for debate. I think this is the reverse version of the Dior vs Hanfu Mamian skirt saga.
A Chinese Haute Couturier taking a historical piece of garment worn by the Straits Chinese of a different country, and appropriating it without acknowledgement UNTIL it was found out by the collecting authority and got in touch with her. Of course this story has a happy ending with the two pieces reuniting in a public exhibition and the Museum got the chance to tell our side of the story.
I would like to reiterate my stand on copying. I’m not against copying as long as it is done respectfully, with proper credit given to the original, and with proper research which means that it ceased to be an act of plagiarism. Also, there are good copies and bad copies. Good copies are known as paying homage to the original, and they assume an iconic status through their innovative interpretation and a life of its own thereafter. Bad copies are just… thoughtless appropriations with little to no modification but if they somehow became popular/famous, that’s likely due to the amount of media advertisement and coverage they managed to secure.
We have evolved and have had cultural exchanges for so long that it is impossible to say that something belongs exclusively to one culture and not the other, and it is a myopic way of looking at things. Of course the power imbalance and exploitation are problematic, so it should be assessed according to intent and not one’s race. I find that foreigners who are not native to a particularly culture can be equally if not even more appreciative of that culture than the natives, because cultural identity is often something that is taken for granted by the majority. I never thought much of my Chinese identity and cultural attachments growing up in a Chinese majority society until I lived overseas for a while.
Anyway, here’s a bonus one by another Chinese designer who apparently was quite famous and appeared in Paris Fashion Week— Lawrence Xu.
YVES SAINT LAURENT 2004 FALL
I got to know him while watching a documentary/show on the Chinese Brocade, and you can clearly tell the displeasure of the master craftsman with the way Lawrence treats his craft. And personally, I think Lawrence has the same kitschy taste as this Chinese Haute Couturier, and their lack of understanding of their own culture and craft are pretty obvious as well though they are the spokesperson of it. I think the biggest problem for China is that their officially endorsed cultural/fashion ambassadors do not represent the essence and the best of its ancient cultural heritage.
If everyone’s end goal is fame and money, then something’s gotta give and often it is culture.
So, what are your thoughts? Yay or Nay? Was the original better or the copy better?
The Hanfu scene is bustling with excitement (for better or worse) today because of the Dior Fall collection. In particular, the black mamian skirt look-alike (Dior Pleated Skirt) and its pairing with the corset which looks suspiciously also like the way the modernised Ming dynasty (14th-17th century) hanfu style that you see a lot in the last few years in China.
Homage, Copycat, or Appropriation are all just similar concepts to different ends/results and of different intentions. I’m too lazy to be politically correct or prescriptive about their definitions and nuances, but the simplest way of looking at it is probably whether the finishing looks as good as, better, or worse than the original item/style that they are trying to emulate. Or if they managed to establish a strong style/design through thoughtful innovation on top of the original which makes it a new style by definition.
THE ORIGINAL ARTEFACT IN HISTORY
Here’s the original Ming style Mamian Skirt and the vest-like (or if you want to sound pretentiously superior, corset-like) undergarment artefact image:
The low cut with strings tying together is actually the front of the vest
This is a silk gauze brocade skirt with its pleats laid out flat. When worn, it would look like the Dior skirt.
THE MODERN HANFU INTERPRETATIONS
The Hanfu movement has been in full swing for a while, and there are many young Chinese designers who have came up with lots of variations of the Ming style modern hanfu wear which you might find shockingly similar to the one by Dior:
So they’ve shortened the skirt length, modified the fastening/securing mechanism of the skirt, and matched the undergarment as a summer top with the mamian skirt.
For autumn/fall/winter season, the Mamian skirt is even nicer to pair with winter coats and other basics as I did during my Sabbatical Trip. Thanks in advance for indulging me in my pre-covid + pre-baby travel trip photo-sharing.
IN VENICE
IN NYC
Of course mine were the original length skirts with tie-string fastening mechanism which was the most traditional method for the Chinese. But you could see just how non-costumey they can be if you paired them properly. I also have black mamian with subtly weaved motifs and golden thread weaved patterns. I’m a huge fan of Mamian skirts (Have more than a dozen of them of different colours and materials).
Anyway…
When it comes to innovating a nice fastening mechanism, I would say Dior 0 : Hanfu designers 1
Honestly for a S$5,500 skirt, I expected better. But obviously the Hanfu makers were probably also copying the kilt makers in the waist fastening mechanism.
One of my favourite part about the vest-like undergarment of Ming is the Ming style metal frog buttons that lined the front middle part of the undergarment as in the one below:
They’re wonderfully diverse and beautifully made, and often adorned with precious stones such as the ones below:
The least that Dior could do was to invest some of their marketing budgets into these finer details. They can keep the clean lines and ‘minimalistic’ look (sometimes I suspect minimalism is just an excuse to cut cost), but those metal eyelets and straps are hardly anything worth shouting about.
MAMIAN SKIRT, SCOTTISH KILT, DIOR—What are the differences?
My first instinct when I saw the controversy erupting was, hang on, maybe they’re just inspired by their own ‘Western’ (sorry I’m using such a loose term) dressing—kilts. But then someone noted that the kilts had full pleats at the back, whereas the Mamian skirt had the same flat panel front and back which was exactly what Dior had. And yes, we also saw how the Hanfu makers copied the kilt’s way of securing the skirt:
Although I can’t be 100% sure but from the video (based on how the skirt moves when the model is walking) it appears that the back flap of the Dior skirt also has that ability to flip open up from the back just like the front. [Update: OK, I can confirm that the Dior skirt is EXACTLY the same structure and everything as the Chinese Mamian skirt, video explanation below the image]:
This artefact is from the Southern Song dynasty (12-13th century) of China, and it already had the earliest form of the Mamian skirt. Interestingly, such skirts were initially worn by the courtesans (who were, as usual, always at the forefront of fashion), and then it became a skirt popular amongst the aristocratic women by the Ming dynasty.
Obviously everyone loves the Mamian skirt. The style has survived for almost 1,000 years now, with fashionistas constantly trying to emulate it in different forms, and it has not only fascinated the Chinese. The Western designers of our days were equally fascinated by the Mamian skirts and Dior’s 2022 Fall design is by no mean their first encounter with the Mamian skirt of China.
Back in 1998, the legendary John Galliano had presented several dresses inspired by the Qing dynasty Mamian skirts as well:
Here are the actual Qing era skirts and the resemblance is pretty evident:
But wait, Dior’s not the only one!
Princes Diana too wore it once, and Alice Through the Looking Glass film clearly also based Alice’s costume on it.
Taste is subject, of course. That explains why many people splurge on what I would find ugly items. So what is your take on Dior’s latest Fall design that is obviously based on the Ming era mamian skirt?
Personally, I find it a blatant and poorly done copycat attempt (without acknowledgement at that!) because obviously the 2022 design doesn’t create anything distinctly new or impressive. The Chinese has a modern phrase 谁丑谁尴尬 which loosely translates to ‘Whoever does it better wins the game’. This applies to many of the art appropriation claims as well.
And I’m not even going to talk about cultural appropriation in this instance since it’s beyond obvious. But I’d love to hear your thoughts!
And I shall end my post with my Ming style mulberry silk vest embroidered with hydrangeas, in NYC (cos everyone is travelling now and I’m stuck! I deserve this. 😉
While most of us associate the Chinese dragon with men, the idea of a Dragon Lady was very popular in the West in the 30s. To the West, Asian women were dangerous, domineering, mysterious but sexually alluring at the same time, and countless films and pop culture references played on that stereotypical idea of an Asian woman. To be fair, the women of the West weren’t spared of the femme fatale stereotype either so I think it is fundamentally a female objectification issue, and in the context of America at the turn of the last century, it was complicated by racism.
The Original Chinese Dragon Lady
But the Western men were not alone in their vile objectification of women, or Chinese women. The Chinese men, too, had lots of tales of female spirits who “tempted” men and filled them with lusts. The most poignant one, personally, was the case of the Investiture of the Gods, a 16th century Chinese novel.
Image of Anna May Wong, a famous Chinese American actress in Hollywood in the 30s who was seen as the archetype of Dragon Lady on screen. Also, her biopic is in the making starred by Gemma Chan from Crazy Rich Asians.
In it, the creator of mankind, a goddess called Nüwa, was the main culprit of the downfall of the Shang dynasty (an ancient empire some 3,000 years ago). The story goes that the last king of Shang dynasty saw her sculpture at the temple, and was sexually attracted to her. He wrote poems expressing his lust and spoke of marrying the goddess. Upset by his blasphemy, the goddess brought down 3 nymphs (spirits disguised as beautiful women) to seduce him, causing him to neglect his nation and became cruel to his people and eventually the downfall of his empire.
Sounds about right for the idea of a “Dragon Lady” huh?
Except that this was a very problematic portrayal by the then extremely patriarchal Chinese society, of the goddess of creation who was an important female figure when Chinese society was still matriarchal.
The Chinese society (like many others) started as a matriarchal one which meant that kids would only know who their mothers were, and not their fathers. Thus Nüwa exemplified that far ancient part of Chinese when women ruled together as a community. It was only when the Chinese society slowly transited into a patriarchal one that a male creator Fuxi came into existence and they both came to be known as the creators of mankind.
In fact, Nüwa had a different name back then, it was Nüxi or Xihe (Xihe was also known as the Guardian of Sun and Moon way back, and she eventually was split into The Mother of 10 Suns and Chang-E The Goddess of Moon. I did a reinterpretation of her in my Sailormoon Series). She was said to have created mankind from the soil due to her extreme boredom of being alone on earth, which is a further evidence that there was no male figure at the very start. Also, it was believed that primitive societies did not associate sex with birth-giving, so they did not think that men were necessary in the birth of a child, while women could give birth to both genders.
Interestingly, like the story of Adam and Eve, snakes were involved in this creation myth. And like many civilisations such as the pre-Classical Greek, snakes were often associated with the female goddess/creators. Fun fact: China formed a matriarchal society some 40,000-50,000 years ago and Greek slightly later, and China transited into patriarchal some 3,000 years earlier than the Greeks. During my research I came across this book in which the author said there is no culture where paternity was ignored in prehistoric times, I think she didn’t study Chinese texts because there were many mentions when paternity was ignored including the birth of the ancient ruler of Shang dynasty being a result of his mom swallowing the egg of a black bird.
Painting from Western Han (3rd century BCE) with Fuxi the male god holding the Sun and Nüwa the female goddess holding the Moon.Eastern Han (1st century CE) wall engraving with Fuxi holding a tool to draw square, and Nüwa holding a tool to draw circleTang Dynasty painting from Astana graves (8th century) with Fuxi holding a tool to draw square, and Nüwa holding a tool to draw circle
After transiting into patriarchal society, subsequent Chinese artworks/records depicted the male and female creators as having the body of a snake. Now snake has been an important and highly regarded creature in ancient societies, and was present as a totem across civilisations. A far cry from its villain identity today.
The dragon, seen as the ultimate symbol of the Chinese ruler, was based primarily on the body of a snake (with many accessorising features from other animals such as the deer’s antlers, bull’s nose, Eagle’s claws, Tiger’s palms etc.). While some ancient Chinese tribes saw themselves as descendants of a bird, others saw their ancestors as snakes, and it is for this reason, the creator of mankind were depicted as snakes.
The modern Dragon with her snake body, eagle claws, beatle shell eyebrows, gill-like ears, and antler-inspired hair and accessories.
This styling was designed in collaboration with Aaron Han (@aharw) assisted by gabby @ga.bae.be Makeup assisted by Danny @chenlingx0 with Jamie as model Photo by Aaron and I
Symbolism of an Emerald Dragon
Yes, I call it Emerald, although prevalent sources translated it as Azure because of the context of its name.
Languages and words take on the meaning of the context, and in this case, the Emerald Dragon represented the regeneration of life in Spring. While the word Qing 青 could refer to blue and green (as in the case of the same character ‘aoi’ 青い in Japanese) in Chinese culture and at times even Black, it would make sense that the Qing Long would be green like the colours of Spring leaves. The ancient people saw colours quite differently from us today, which probably explains why humanity didn’t have separate words for green and blue way back.
The emerald dragon’s boots is a reference to its green/blue scales of the snake. A Tang period hairstyle to exaggerate the shape of the head to look like a dragon. An a vintage Gucci green jacket to signify the luxury and royalty of the dragon as an auspicious animal.
The Emerald Dragon represents Spring, when flowers bloom and butterflies flock from one bush to another. This costume from the Legend of Miyue is obviously a copy of the Japanese dress, which I will go into detail another time.
Japan and China
The East, where the Sun rises, is also associated with the Emerald Dragon. And of course, the land of the rising sun in our modern memory, also refers to Japan. So I’m going to share w a few funny stories about Sino-Japanese historical relations, and muse over how the Chinese inverse-appropriates the Japanese culture these days.
One of the most hilarious accounts I’ve read about Japan and China relations was one that happened in 607CE. The Japanese diplomat of Asuka period Japan Ono no Imoko presented a letter from the Japanese female emperor (Yes, it was a female emperor!) to the Sui dynasty emperor with the following line:
日出处天子，致书日没处天子，无恙
Greetings, from Son of Heaven where the Sun rose, to Son of Heaven where the Sun set.
Clearly I was bored and wanted to try a few different renditions with different mood for this portrait. Which is your favourite?
Now, I don’t know how you understand it, but I thought that is HILARIOUSLY APPALLING! Because as romantic as it sounds with the mention of sun set and sun rise, of heaven and all, I can totally imagine how offended the Sui dynasty emperor must’ve felt upon hearing it. The general consensus today was not that he was offended by the “sun set” part, but by the fact that Japan saw itself as an equal with China (Chinese emperor had always thought of themselves as the superior one to its neighbouring countries). And true enough, he told his liaison officer that he did not wish to hear from the “Barbarians” if they continued sending such rude letters.
I have styled the Dragon Lady in a Japanese-Chinese fashion also because Chinese pop culture depiction of ancient Chinese women over 1,000 years ago have always been extremely influenced by the Japanese aesthetics. And the Chinese liked to claim that it was because the Japanese were influenced by Chinese aesthetics at that point in time. I find this inverse-appropriation by the Chinese extremely interesting because instead of looking at their own artefacts to uncover the original Chinese look of the period, they decided to turn to the Japanese’s interpretation and evolved adaptation of the Chinese culture.
The long flowing hair was indeed valued by the ancient Chinese, but in nowhere could we find women draping it down like the Japanese during the Heian period although women did drape a little of their hair down with a knot at the neck area.
Have a look at the Han Chinese style vs the Heian Japanese styling of hair:
Chinese Han Dynasty female figurineChinese Han Dynasty female figurineJapanese Heian style femaleThe Han woman would not have long flown hair, or loose hair (unlike what has been portrayed in shows). It is a very Japanese-influenced aesthetic. So is the multi-coloured, layered robes with a long tail, like their juni-hitoe.
Even though the TV produces and stylists of China refuse to acknowledge it, they have been extremely influenced by the HK period drama creators of the 80s and 90s, who were in turn influenced by the Japanese aesthetics greatly. And fast forward a few decades, the Chinese period drama stylists and consumers have naturalised this Japanese aesthetics, blending what seems Chinese but essentially very Japanese aesthetics into their mix, creating a new fusion aesthetics today.
This topic is fascinating and a fun exploration to go into for a future post.
Yes, I should probably also talk about the recent/age-old debate about Korean vs Chinese dressing in modern Chinese period shows too, some day.
Emerald Dragon, Symbol of Spring, and the East where the Sun rises. It was a creature full of vitality.
While the biggest event in Fashion x History has just concluded, judging from the turnout at the Met Gala, one can conclude that dressing to the theme isn’t quite a forte of A-listers. In the name of greater good, this series will demonstrate how one can be fashionably historically-inspired, while still adhering to certain themes.
AUSPICIOUS BIRDS AND US
Birds have had a long history of being seen as auspicious creatures and totems in Chinese culture. The Sun, for example, was represented by a three-legged bird. And of course, we are all very familiar with the phoenix, which at some point became synonymous with the bird in question I’m discussing today.
It has been known by many names in the Eastern part of the world, Zhu Que by the Chinese, Suzaku by the Japanese, Jujak by the Korean and Chu Tước by the Vietnamese. It symbolised the southern constellations of the night sky, and the element Fire.
Because of its association with fire, the vermillion bird is often thought to be the phoenixes by the West. And yes, plural because the Chinese Phoenixes fenghuang had gender (Feng was the male, and Huang was the female, and they combined into a singular identity somewhere down the road later on), while the Vermillion Bird did not.
The phoenix was believed to have the colours of the rainbow while the Vermillion Bird took its colour from the fire. Was that a phoenix or a vermillion bird that we spotted in Mulan? hmmm…..
Mulan (2020) live action movie featured a ‘phoenix’ which actually looks more like the Vermillion Bird of the South. Disney probably got confused between the Chinese and the Western phoenix.
Although some sources said that the ancient Chinese thought the stars in the southern night sky resembled the vermillion bird, thus the assignment of this symbol, it is unlikely so as the Vermillion Bird of the South as well as the Black Warrior of the North did not come into existence in the constellation assignment until much later (about 2,000 years ago) while the ancient Chinese were already very familiar with the constellations for far longer and had assigned the Dragon and Tiger to them first.
THE STYLING
Since Tang and Qing dynasty has the most fun and daring make-up trends ands styles, our styles were mainly based on these two periods, jazzed it up for modern taste.
The vermillion bird wears vintage Thierry Mugler jacket, with big exaggerated shoulders but sleek silhouette to emphasize it being an animal of the skies. A single red feather nose piece is the only thing to hint at it being a bird.
This styling was designed in collaboration with Aaron Han (@aharw) assisted by gabby @ga.bae.be Makeup assisted by Danny @chenlingx0 and Silas @operatang Photo by Aaron and I
The styling was done in a manner to represent the animals but also not in a literal sense. The traits that are used are symbolic, just like the animal themselves are symbolic.
The Vermillion Bird obscures half of its face with a Bian Mian fan which is a half-oval type of fan with a history of over 2,000 years. Originally made of bamboo, it evolved to other materials overtime and the one in the shoot was made with an emerald green silk gauze with weaved patterns. Very understated, and quintessentially Chinese. Its subtletly is juxtaposed with the red feather nose piece of The House of Malakai styled by Aaron (@aharw) to suggest its avian nature. Of course, the collar design and the Tang style (circa 8th century) wing-like eyebrows are also suggestive of that.
Section of the reference brow from Tang. This is a painting on silk screen uncovered from the Astana tombs.
Underneath the nose piece, were rouge blushers across the cheeks which some might recall seeing on famous 90s Chinese singer Faye Wong, or more recently, singer Rainie Yang. Except that it’s a lot more intense, as it would’ve been how the Tang people of the 10th century were copying the Tibetans during that time in this style of make-up.
Who wore it better? Left Faye Wong, Middle a Tibetan lady, Right Rainie Yang.
Obviously celebrities typically don’t do much research when they try on different make-up styles, pretty sure the socialites of Tang didn’t either, it was probably just cool or fun for them to experiment with a different styles because this style of blusher was deemed barbaric by the early Tang rulers, and had requested for the Tibetans to stop this practice. Who’d knew that a few hundred years later, it would become vogue at the end of Tang!
And just in case you thought the hair looks non-Chinese (like the typical long hair at the back in Chinese period dramas), I’d like to point you towards the Dunhuang murals from the Tang dynasty (same period), and look at the blushers and the hairstyle and accessories, it’s really quite Over The Top:
Section of Dunhuang Mural in Mogao Cave no. 61 with a noble lady of late Tang accessoried with many large and elaborate hair pins, haircombs, and the Tibetan style brick-red rouge on her cheeks.
The lip was also historically based on the last dynasty of China—Qing dynasty. Similar to the Tang rulers, the Qing were not of the Han ethnic group although they have adopted a great deal of the Han practices after ruling over this Han-majority land for centuries. The Qing lip would typically be just a red dot on the bottom lip, but there were instances where the top lip was also painted fully.
Picture of Imperial Consort Pearl (Zhen Fei), who was rumoured to have been drowned in a well in the Forbidden City by the Empress Dowager Cixi. She has the Qing style lip with a dot an her bottom lipi in this picture.
The Modern Vermillion Bird wears vintage Thierry Mugler jacket, with big exaggerated shoulders but sleek silhouette to emphasize it being an animal of the skies.
The fringe skirt by Raf Simon for Calvin Klein is a reference to its long tail feathers.
Unlike the Phoenix, the Red Bird is just red, while phoenixes were said to be of rainbow colours.
The vermillion bird wears vintage Thierry Mugler jacket, with big exaggerated shoulders but sleek silhouette to emphasize it being an animal of the skies. A single red feather nose piece is the only thing to hint at it being a bird with its front skirt is a reference to its long tail feathers.
The broad shoulder look was never really a Chinese thing, as sloping shoulder would look better in the traditional Chinese garment that has no shoulder seams. But that changed in the 40s with women adding shoulder-pads to their Cheongsams to accentuate the shoulder. This look is exemplified by the Japanese Singer in China Yoshiko Yamaguchi, most famously known by her Chinese stage name Li Xiang Lan 李香兰:
Left: Famous American-Chinese writer Eileen Chang Right: Yshiko Yamaguchi/Li Xiang Lan in broad shoulder Cheongsam
QUINTESSENTIALLY CHINESE CRAFT, ACCESSORIES AND AESTHETICS
The Western fashion is very big on silhouettes of the dress, while the Chinese has always been about the hair, the craftsmanship, and the understated luxury where one needs to be close enough and in the ‘right circle of knowledge’ to appreciate the weave, the texture, the material, the motif etc. There’s a lot of secrecy behind many of the crafts, and that made them exclusive, therefore a sign of prestige for those who recognise them. Yet, in Chinese culture (quite unlike the Japanese), the craftsmen are anonymous, and undervalued in the grander scheme of things because the Chinese aesthetics has always been literati-led and the craftsmen were more of the ‘technicians’ to the literati’s ‘artistic vision’. Not unlike the many craftsmen working anonymously behind designer brands that bore the mark of the big name designers who most likely did not make those items themselves.
Another style with hair full of Chineseness. Velvet silk flower of bird motif, Chinese-Hakka style wound silk flowers, and purple jade flower. Bodysuit by Richard Quinn, Nose piece by Ricardo Tisci for Givenchy, styled by Aaron han (@aharw) Hair and accessories by me, make-up by Silas and I.
And just to transition into the more purely Chinese look, we did another look with more Chinese accessories, and also a Tang style hair and make-up with Qing lips. You probably think that it is a copycat of Frida Kahlo, honestly we didn’t realise it until it’s been done, and I immediately recalled a stranger getting in touch to borrow from me my silk flowers for her dressed-up costume party (she stopped responding the moment I told her the price of the flowers. I know, the value of these things aren’t very apparent to those who are not familiar with them).
I use a lot of lacquer and silk flowers because they are so, so, archetypically Chinese but most people just think of Chinese = gold. When in actuality, Chinese didn’t really use much gold in the ancient past. Or Green Jade (Jadeite) for that matter.
I love the emerald green silk scarve that has the auspicious clouds motif done in silver and gold couching technique.
Notice the green bangle? That is a vintage carved lacquer bangle (very rare to come by as typically it would be in red/cinnabar). Carved lacquer came about sometime during the Tang dynasty as well (circa 8th century or so) and became quite a thing later on so even though lacquer was used in many Asian cultures, carve lacquer can be said to be quintessentially Chinese. It is an extremely tedious process, as you would require hundreds of layers of paint, painted and dried, and painted and dried, before you can reach just a few centimetres of thickness for carving.
The Met (HAH!) had an exhibition on lacquer/cinnabar in 2009, you can read the synopsis HERE.
For the Traditional Chinese Vermillion Bird, I’ve decided to go with a wedding look because we often think of phoenixes for Chinese weddings, yet the colour that brides often wear for that occasion would be Red which is actually the colour of the Vermilion Bird. And since the Vermillion bird is often confused with the Phoenix, and more often than not used interchangeably with it, might as well throw the two into the same mix. If you can’t beat them, join them!
Styled, shot, accessories by me.
And you don’t say, Silas certainly looks a bit like Gemma Chan here don’t you think?
For this time round, she’s wearing cinnabar carved lacquer bangles. One is red-on-red, one is red-on-black. Both are vintage pieces.
Now, I shall introduce you to the real Chinese filigree and cloisonné craft for hair accessories. Not the fashion jewelry type worn on the red carpet at the Met by Chef Melissa King for her nail protector. Apparently it was supposed to be inspired by Empress Dowager Cixi (who is, by the way, NOT the last empress of China, contrary to what the Chef wrote on her insta).
The thing about traditional craftsmanship that came from a lineage of thousands of years, is that they get finer and finer, and they are often consumed by the imperial family so the demand for finesse is extremely high. Also, they are all about understated luxury. If it’s that big a bling, it’s probably too crass for them.
Filigree nailguard with ruby, pearl and kingfisher feather inlay. Collection of the Palace Museum in Beijing.Close-up details of the nailguard
The Palace Museum collection has quite a number of nail guards made from the Imperial Chinese filigree craft, completed with gems, pearls and kingfisher feathers on many occasions. You can zoom in to see the fine details of these nailguards, and they are extremely intricate —as fine as the kingfisher feathers.
In order to give you a bit more context on the scale of these intricacies, I shall zoom in a little bit on the filigree and cloisonné of the phoenix hairpiece in my photo which has similar craftsmanship as the palace museum nail guard above.
It is made with tiny grains of freshwater pearls and ruby (I think, I can’t remember the stones cos I have too many of these accessories.. lol). Her earrings are also filigree and cloisonné phoenix. SUPER AUSPICIOUS I KNOW!
I did an apprenticeship a couple of years back on filigree, cloisonné and kingfisher feather craft in Beijing, and it was through this process that I came to fully appreciate just how intricate this craft is. It’s not the type that you can see on photos or videos, that’s why celebrities wouldn’t really wear them because they don’t show up on screen that well cos they’re too tiny.
Extremely close up view of the phoenix filigree and cloisonné hairpin.
If you zoom in close enough, you can see that the edges of the wings is made up of tiny dots of gold. It’s actually very very fine silver threads gilded in gold, twisted into like a braid-like structure and welded onto the base. When I did my apprenticeship, the first thing to do was to learn how to pull the thick silver threads into fine strands, finger than human hair. And how to twist them in shape without breaking them. Sorry about the resolution, it’s just too fine for my camera. I will do better next time.
Our vermillion bird bride with a hair full of intangible cultural heritage craft—silk flowers based on Palace Museum collection, and a fan of another type of intangible cultural heritage craft—Kesi, also based on Palace Museum collection.
Since this set is all about intangible cultural heritage and fine Chinese crafts, I threw in the Kesi (literally translated to carved silk) fan. This is a replica of the Qing dynasty fan in the collection of the Palace Museum in Beijing.
The side profile you can see butterfly hair pieces made of dyed silk using the wound silk flowers craft, and also dyed goose feather accessories to replace the kingfisher craft. This hairpiece is based on the Qing dynasty item in the collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei.
The topic on Kingfisher feather is contentious, and there are many modern attempts to replicate the effect of kingfisher feather without the cruelty of it. Even the Qing dynasty rulers implemented a ban on using kingfisher feathers for accessories (with limited success obviously).
The cloisonné was one of the historical ways during the Qing period which middle class women could get a pseudo kingfisher feather colour accessory while the aristocrats continued with theirs.
These days, wound silk accessories, dyed goose feather, or peacock feathers are all reasonable substitutes. If you’re wondering (as I did), goose and peacock shed feathers quite readily and their feathers are abundant so it’s not like the case of the kingfisher where you need to kill many to get a tiny bit (disclaimer: goose and peacocks are not harmed since you just gather their shed feathers).
I’m actually making a series of accessories with these type of feathers and vintage lacquer pieces, and will be sharing them later half of the year! So stay tuned!
Meanwhile, if you’re planning to have a Chinese wedding shoot, please don’t go red + gold. It’s so cliché and nouveau riche. At least try to add some finesse like turquoise, blue, green, cyan, pearl, aquamarine, lapis lazuli, lacquer… They are going to add a lot more texture and colours to your otherwise crass look. We do, after all, have at least 5000 years of material culture and history to tap on, don’t behave like we only have 50.
Oh no, I was totally not referring to the billionaire daughter’s wedding (which one? so many huh.. :P).
POP CULTURE REFERENCE
The four guardians were first brought to my attention when I was a young latchkey child watching Japanese anime on my couch after school with my sister. Fushigi Yuugi was the name of the anime, and it started with the chapter of the Vermillion Bird of the South—Suzaku (in Japanese). It had all the characters with special abilities, each representing one of the 7 constellations of the southern nightsky under the charge of the Vermilion Bird.
So it is fitting that we start off this series with the Vermillion Bird.
DRAG IN CHINESE CONTEXT & AFTERTHOUGHTS
In the anime, the king of the southern kingdom Hotohori was a man who was as beautiful as a woman, probably very ahead of its time in the 90s.
And in this series, I have worked with Silas (@operatang) to portray this beautiful feminine side of a man. Drag is not new to Chinese traditional culture, except that it was not politicised like the West. The archetypical Chinese Opera look was a result of men trying to hide their masculine facial features in order to look more feminine. And beautiful men were a thing and even recorded in historical texts for thousands of years.
Hotohori in Fushigi Yuugi
When I approached Silas for this project, I also intended to try to re-interpret drag as we know it today in a traditional Chinese manner—from the perspective of someone who wants to look as much like a woman in representation according to a male perspective. This is historically related to the oppression of women in public for about 500 years where images and representation of women were manifested through male bodies in public performances, through their ideas of what a woman is like, how we walk, how we talk, or by male painters.
So as a result, as it is today, men could be more ‘feminine’ than we are (small sample size, but the 2 women involved this shoot can attest to that!). Maybe femininity has often been depicted through the male gaze, so what we see is often a man’s ideal woman image (not how we actually behave, but how they fantasize us to be). So a man could possibly represent very well this ‘ideal femininity’ if they are in touch with their feminine side. Silas showed me some Asian drag queens who are absolutely gorgeous and live up to the ideal female archetype upheld by society (we’re all fellow subjects of the male gaze in this instance!).
I also wondered about the concept of ‘womanface‘ in western drag practices, where features of what it meant to be a woman were used as content for jokes, as part of the overall ‘ridiculous’ look. I’m not sure if I prefer that, or the over-romanticisation of female body during our oppression (as in the Chinese context). Two extremes of the male take on femininity.
Food for thought I guess!
AND because you lasted till the end of this article, you are rewarded with a Vermillion Bird Instagram/facebook selfie make-up filter! Click on the hyperlinked text to claim them:
In fashion, things are always cyclical. So it’s without a tinge of irony when I say that the most fashionable thing to happen in 2020s is for a fashion designer to claim that Cheongsam is a symbol of “Progress”, echoing her Eurocentric predecessors at the turn of last century somewhere around the 1920s-30s.
Sometime during that period, the women were dressed in very baggy robes or blouse and skirt combination (depending on your ethnicity), and while the form remained fairly similar to the untrained European eye, the focus throughout Chinese fashion history were really on the motifs (auspicious and seasonal), embroideries, colours, weave of fabric, and many other extremely nuanced things that required a trained eye to identity (thus differentiating those who are ‘in’ and ‘out’ of the privileged group).
I remember taking art history class which taught me that Chinese paintings had no perspective unlike the Europeans, and it was only in recent years when I start to decolonise my knowledge by learning the actual Chinese painting history and philosophy that I realise that like Chinese fashion, it was a hugely misunderstood “fact”.
Back to the last century.
Here’s a few quotes from well known art historian/ historian/ writers who shared this Eurocentric view on Chinese fashion and, by extension, the state of Chinese societies:
Woman around late 19th centuryPost Han circa 4th to 5th century CEHan Dynasty (circa 3rd century BCE to 3rd century CE)
[T]he Chinese family of the last century looked very much like a Chinese family of the Classical age.
Quentin Bell, English Art Historian and Author, 1910-1996
Ok, I’ve put 3 images side by side above, and I don’t know why he thinks that the leftmost (Qing dynasty) looked very much like the other two (“Classical” age) dresses. As an art historian, I find his observational skills extremely lacking.
[The] variations in Chinese dress from dynasty to dynasty… [occur] at the speed of a rather hesitant glacier.
Quentin Bell, English Art Historian and Author, 1910-1996
I’m not even gonna go into dynasty to dynasty. I’m just gonna pick ONE dynasty — Tang dynasty (7th to 10th century) and showing a small fraction of the kind of diversity in fabric, motif, colours, styles (look at those hair and make-up!) and just leave it as that. Strange that people feel so qualified to critique other cultures based on poorly researched information (if at all). Just FYI, women were cross-dressing in male robes as early as Tang dynasty—didn’t need to wait for Qing/Cheongsam.
Quick glance at Chinesen fashion in the last 2,000 years
[The mandarin’s robes] scarcely changed in the course of centuries, but then Chinese society itself scarcely moved at all.
Fernand Braudel, French Historian, 1902-1985
Am I the only one who’s concerned about the lack of rigour in these historians’ research?
And if you think that it’s just the Europeans who thought so, I assure you that self-loathing Asians who internalised such narratives existed way back too. Case in point, famous writer Eileen Chang (surprise, surprise!). Sorry to Eileen Chang fans, I’m really a non-fan here though I did a replica shot of her in 2018 with my good friend who bears a close resemblance to her.
Generation after generation of women wore the same sorts of clothes without feeling in the least perturbed.
Eileen Chang, China born American Novelist, 1920-1995
So here we have quotes from a hundred years ago, defining the level of “Progress” of a society, and a group of women based on how much their dressing adhered to the Western standards of fashion and behaviour.
Basically Western scholars about a century ago sold the narrative (quite successfully) to everyone that the Chinese costume was a symbol of this inert Chinese society that was immobilised by tradition. So Chinese literati who were educated overseas bought that narrative as well, and they started looking down on their own traditions, language and dresses (part of the reason for the advent of Cheongsam). Really there’s a lot of inferiority complex at play in this as well.
Fast forward to the 30s, the Chinese society started to adopt the western cutting for their dresses, which meant more body-fitting dresses, and I presume that was a sign of ‘progress’ to the Western scholars. Similar to how the local designer saw ‘hand shaking with men’ a sign of progress for women… I’m not sure what to feel about that honestly.
A very 60s Cheongsam look
For the longest time I have had an uncomfortable relationship with the Cheongsam because I find it over sexualised and exoticised. I find that it has become a banal symbol of Chinese culture due to its over commercialisation and sexualisation, and it is only in recent years when I start repurposing and tailoring my own cheongsam, and working more with Lin Tong (and doing more reading) that I am starting to feel more at ease with it. Even then, I maintain an earlier style of Cheongsam with minimum (if any) western tailoring cuts because it’s loose fitting, more functional, more comfortable and less objectifying to women’s body. But if women feel confident in them because of the way they feel about their own body (disregarding the male gaze) then that works great too!
But maybe that’s also because I’m in my mid 30s and no longer have a hot bod to flaunt the body hugging cheongsam in! #mombodrockstoo
That’s all for my late night musing triggered by a recent incident. And also a chance to post some really overdue photos.
Because of Fashion’s close associations with consumption, it has often been dismissed as frivolous in modern context. However, fashion, in its fundamental form, has all along been a highly politicised matter. A woman’s body is never her own, and how she dresses, the shape of her body parts, and her fashion choices were more than just superficial indulgences. Fashion has often been, especially in the context of ancient Chinese societies, a highly controversial political and moral signifier.
But you would be mistaken to think that Chinese women were way more repressed than their western counterparts. For one, if you’ve heard of the ‘bra-burning feminist‘ term (which didn’t really happen btw), you might be surprised to know that while this call for liberation from the constraints of bras happened in the late 60s America, Chinese women have been calling for liberation of their boobs in the name of female empowerment way back in the early 1910s! That’s 50 years before!
The next time you see an old photo of Chinese women, or an antique Chinese dress/Cheongsam, notice the chest area. It should be rather flat.
Most people are familiar with the done-to-death use of the bound feet as a mark of female oppression in ancient Chinese societies. But it was believed to be an influence from the West. In their initial stages, it wasn’t even all that small. Rather, it was more of a narrow feet aesthetic. Subsequently, as with everything, it lots its original sense and became festishcised into the form that we recognise today.
Early 1910s was the onset of a huge wave of Western influence in Chinese society. With the fall of the Qing empire, and return of many western-educated Chinese, the concept of “Westernisation” was exceptionally attractive to the Chinese literati. The flapper style in the 20s also caught on its run in China.
While we all know about foot-binding, very few know of the equally long-standing chest-binding practice which coincidentally fitted the flapper fashion in the early 20th century in the West. The irony is that while the women of the West embraced flapper fashion with flattened chest as a symbol of liberation from their corsets, at the same time, the women of China had flat chests as a result of the same constraints that the corsets imposed on their Western counterparts. So even though the more progressive Chinese literatis (men and women) of that time called for a liberation of their ‘natural breasts’ but it was not until 1927 that it was officially launched by the government. So Chinese women still maintained a very narrow and flat side body profile before that.
A more traditional Chinese woman in the early 20s would have her hair long and neatly combed up, and in two-piece dress as that was the traditional way of dressing for thousands of years. The one-piece robe was not a Han Chinese practice after the Han dynasty. Which is ironic but this little detail became relevant in the debate on the origin of Cheongsam.
And the East and the West met in the middle. The western flapper fashion was a natural fit to the Chinese women’s new feminist consciousness and their (newly-liberated)bound-chest silhouette. Think about it this way, if there is a mom-bod trend in fashion now, I would definitely be the biggest avocate and buy a million of the “mom-bod fashion” dresses. #justsaying. That’s probably what went on in China in those days, with women finding this ‘western’, and ‘modern’ fashionable look easy to transit into with their existing body.
Women who just came out of the Qing dynasty period would still have relatively flat chest, and the practice of chest binding and preference for small chest continued in the consciousness of many as a mark of elegance. I know, even my mom who’s born in the 50s still subscribes to that. This coincides with the aesthetics of the Flapper style in the 20s, which adds to the attractiveness and ease of adoption of the western fashion during that period.
The traditional Chinese dress, which is generically referred to as the Hanfu is done with a flat cutting (Kimono has a similar structure). To put it simply, you can put it on a flat surface, and fold it easily without having a lot of uneven parts such as the seams around the boobs and the butts popping out. It is technically not totally flat but that’s a topic for another day.
For the purpose of the shoot, we had all the models binding their chests (if they are well-endowed) so that the fabric of the dresses would drape nicely down instead of having a bulge at the chest level that’s too vulgar for the cutting of the dress. If you think that having feminine curves is what defines a Cheongsam, then you’re probably referring to the less traditional (relatively so) Cheongsams that were influenced by the Western cutting. Early cheongsams were very comfortable, loose fitting and less sexualised. My personal favourite style to go with my mom bod.
Most people probably have tried on a Yukata or Kimono (probably more likely than a piece of Hanfu). And you would have noticed that the general aesthetic is to have a flat chest waist and butt line, essentially having a special bra that presses your chest down is one of the important accessories. Traditional Hanfu, due to its flatness, has similar aesthetics. The explanation which I found through my own experience, is that you would look bloated if you have big boobs as the excess fabric would drape down your body like you are pregnant since it is not fitted to your body shape.
So an ideal Chinese beauty in the last few hundred years, would have no boobs (and shoulders) essentially.
Because fashion is an important way for women to project their ideological stands, you could tell who were the ‘liberated’ new age women and the traditionalists.
There were two camps of women at the turn of the century:
The traditionalists who kept their hair long, with bound chests, bound feet and loose-fitting Qing dynasty two-piece top and bottom. They would mostly be home-bound.
The revolutionists who cut their hair short, campaigned for the liberation of natural boobs as a sign of their intellectuality, and a slightly less baggy dress. It could be a mix of western dresses, early form of cheongsam (one-piece and two-piece). And they loved a good party.
The socialites and women from the big families who were educated overseas started cutting and perming their hair, and they design their dresses by merging traditional Chinese elements with the Western styles, and many of them were inspired by the Art Deco style which worked perfectly in an Asian setting as it was very much influenced by the East with its designs peppered with Chinoiserie amongst its other influences.
I wrote ‘liberated’ because you’d have thought that they would’ve been less more moderate in their approach to women’s dressing identity, as the more ‘woke’ group. However, fashion, as always, is bound to be politicised regardless. Haircutting became a political statement, and more educated women saw it as a physical manifestation of their revolution against the patriarch and it was the true spirit of that time.
Before Cheongsam, there were many different types of dress-robe-vest-top styles resembling the eventual form of Cheongsam. They were influenced by both the Han and Manchurian women fashion of that time and evolved organically into the eventual form we know today. Besides the revolution in dressing, there was also the revolution in hairstyles and the cessation of foot binding and chest binding. It was more of a fashion trend as well as a political move towards a perceived liberation of women of that period.
The ‘liberated women’ saw it as a mission to ensure that all the ‘oppressed’ women who still conformed to tradition have their hair cut and started going about forcing everyone to do so. Little did they realise that hair meant so much to the traditional Chinese, not only as a symbol of filial piety, but also as a symbol of one’s very identity, one that is equally important as their ideal of a liberated female identity. So one of the village woman who had her hair forcefully cut, commited suicide. And in an even more extreme case published in a female magazine, it was said that villagers saw women dressed in military wear going around cutting women’s hair, and a group of over 30 women escaped into the middle of a lake on a tiny boat which eventually capsized (presumably drowning everyone on board).
This was so unnecessary on hindsight because top-down approach never works in meaningful conversion. Eventually, women naturally started cutting their hair as they saw more celebrities, socialites/courtesans and famous people doing so. It became so popular that Beijing even started a female hairdressing school in 1928 with a minimum qualification requirement even.
The importance of soft power.
When you look at the old Chinese posters of the republican era, you’d always find women who permed their already very short hair. And even hair perming, went through a politicised process of being first banned by the government to eventually embraced by everyone. What’s interesting is that the first Chinese woman to have been recorded with a permed hair was in 1926, and she went all the way to the Philippines to do so. The price was about the monthly salary of a professor in China’s top university. So those who could afford it naturally were the celebrities, women from rich families and likes, and that became a highly sought after fashion by the masses before being banned in the mid-30s in the name of prudence and simplicity as a highly valued quality of women (with limited success of course).
So, fast forward 100 years or so, women and how we dress/look are still subject of public interest and debates related to morality and value. And we think that we have come a long way? I guess not really!
Public Service Announcement:
This series of photos were taken in partnership with the Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall to create more visual educational content online. They are currently running a Republica era women’s fashion exhibition (a small scale one–managing expectations here) Modern Women of the Republic: Fashion and Change in China and Singapore from now until 12.12.2021.
Meanwhile, I’m still working on the #Yanzilou immersive online film project, hoping to start sharing more with you in mid September, so stay tuned!
We also appreciate contributions to Hanfugirl to allow us to produce and share more topics which are rarely written in English, and even less represented in images. I have a few projects (besides Yanzilou) that I’m dying to make such as the four guardian mythological creatures of the constellations, Chinese Weddings reinterpreted, Chinese gods and fantastic beasts… We’ll get there some day. Slowly, but surely.
Special thanks to Lin Tong for her knowledge, amazing retro vintage hairstyling, hairpin, and the velvet blue dress. Sharon (Dressed up dreams) for light and the Hanfugirls for modelling!
Mulan (2020) reveals a West that is still not ready to see Chinese culture beyond Orientalism and tokenism. It’s fun to watch Mulan uncritically, but it is even funner to see how the West sees Chinese cultural representations and uncover things we never knew about Mulan through a serious, detailed, reading of the film’s aesthetics/sartorial choices.
Despite claims of research into the culture and consultations with Chinese academics, the entire visual and vibe is very much early 20th Century Hollywood style (mainly Qing dynasty stereotypes) combined with B-grade Hong Kong TVB drama. Because of the huge mix in sartorial style, Mulan (2020) turned into some timetravelling fashion show for me.
Some B-grade TVB show based on Tang dynasty…
I will split my article into 2 parts–The fun easter eggs part: A brutal one on the major things that went wrong, and the genuine easter eggs part: All the details that showed research attempts by people completely clueless about the culture and history.
As a typical Asian, we usually are better with criticism than praises, so brutal before kind first.
1. Emperor Jet Li Fu Manchu is part Japanese, part Chinese, part Manchurian but fully Oriental
First of all, there’s nothing that screams Japanese than 100000 layers of thick collar. Looks like some emperor decided to have an excessive adoption of the kimono/ Junihitoe multi-collar style. The silhouette of the Chinese emperor and how he sat on the throne also kinda reminded me of the placement of the Japanese dolls in their junihitoe:
Clearly Disney thinks that all East Asians look the same, as do their cultures and clothes.
Perhaps the emperor was inspired by an ancient record of how some ancient person dressed in 10000 layers of fine silk that was so translucent that a visitor from the foreign land could see the mole on his chest despite it being under those layers. Except that this time, he added his own interpretation–the Japanese way. But hey, he’s the emperor, so no questioning!
The emperor, besides having really amazing qi and kungfu skills, apparently could timetravel as well. His shiny golden throne is so similar to the Qing dynasty throne some 1000 years later and the way he sat on the throne resembles how the Manchurian emperors would look on it that I was SURE he travelled to the Qing dynasty, made a mental picture of it all, and got back to tell his craftsmen to do something similar to that effect. He also got inspired by the way they sat down on the throne. Probably took him some getting used to, but hey, it looks good, so whatever.
Bottom left: Golden throne from Qing dynasty with its elaborate deocrations Bottom right: Emperor Qianlong in his ceremonial wear, seated on the throne in a position very much like the one assumed by Jet Li.
You see, the Chinese used to kneel for daily affairs in place of sitting down because of constraints in their dressings, and their furniture were usually low. During the Tang dynasty, higher seats were imported from the West, but the Chinese still didn’t sit like how we do today, with two feet facing downwards. Even the emperor, when he meets foreign ambassadors did not sit the way Jet Li did. Mostly it was cross legged, and their furniture were really low with their “chair” seats being really spacious so you could cross your legs comfortably on it. You would put your feet down if you were sitting on one of their stools (no backings), which was also a Western import.
Painting (partial) supposedly by famous Tang painter Yan Liben, of Tang emperor Taizong seated with crossed legs on a sedan carried by palace maidens.
And I really don’t get the hat. I don’t think I can find anything like that unless you’re talking about the Qing dynasty court hat.
Yes, the Tang emperor had around 12 different sets of dresses for different occasions, but none would have this kind of hat and attire. Although I’ve yet to find any Tang drawing with this kind of downturned moustache that has its middle cut off (most of the moustaches are upturned), at least he has some beard at the bottom of the chin which is really a saving grace. You see, there was a rule instituted by the Manchurian rulers during the Qing dynasty some 300 years ago, that all men should pluck off their moustaches on the bottom of their chin and in the middle of their top lips, leaving two separate rows of moustache above the top lip. So that is a uniquely Qing dynasty Chinese look as examplified by Fu Manchu below.
Who cares if the Emperor is Chinese, Japanese, from 1300 years ago or 300 years ago. They’re Asian and all Asians look the same anyway. I mean Aladdin was supposedly Chinese in Manchu wear (possibly looking like Fu Manchu) in the original story (yes I’m not kidding, you can google that).
So besides being crazy about Japanese culture like many of us today, the emperor must also be crazy about Qing dynasty culture, like many of us today. Thanks to anime and TVB drama and most recently, Yanxi Palace.
2. Mulan came from a village of bold fashionistas
One thing about Chinese culture that most people are not aware of is that the strict sense of hierarchy in ancient Chinese culture extends to even the way you dress. Since ancient dynasties, the kind of fabric and colours that one could wear was dictated by one’s social hierarchy and it is especially so for men (sorry dudes, this is the price you pay for having ‘qi’). Women often had a lot of leeway to dress in many different colours cos we have been the driving force behind fashion since time immemorial!
So why was anyone surprised that Mulan was a rebel? Her fellow villagers had all the nerve to dress above their hierarchy anyway! Every villager probably also had their hairtoss moments like Mulan.
Audaciously colourful villagers
In the Tang dynasty, plebeians like us could only wear yellow or white colour and especially men were not allowed to wear colours such as purple, green and red because they were reserved for various ranks of officials. At one point it was so strict that even your inner wear ought to conform to the rule. Overtime, the court relaxed the rules, partly because they couldn’t possibly enforce it. I mean, just look at Mulan’s village! Audacious fashionistas all! And so, colours like black which was supposed to be just for the soldiers became one of the plebeians’ dressing colours as well.
Look at how the men in the village looked… uncanny. Disney’s trying to do some product placement for Snow White live movie coming soon maybe?
One of the more pragmatic way of looking at it is, it was an extremely laborious and expensive thing to dye clothes using natural dyes. The more vibrant and darker the colour of the fabric, the more number of times you have to put your fabric in the dye and dry and dye and dry. In ancient China, it was also deemed immoral to be vain and excessive in your dressing since the state promotes agricultural practices more than commercial practices（重农轻商）. They did not want people to indulge in profiteering, but instead to just work hard to earn their keep and to know their place. Of course these restrictions only applied to plebeians like us, while aristocrats and the well-connected were often found with excessively decorative and expensive accessories and gowns.
3. Mulan wasn’t the only female who could yield “qi” in her village
I also spotted two fashionistas who time travelled forward in time and back to the Tang dynasty. Likely they were the other hidden timetravellers in the Mulan universe yielding their hidden talent “qi”. Perhaps we could expect a Mulan II featuring these characters and how they managed to yield their “qi” to bend time.
Look! One wore a kimono-inspired jacket/top, and another, a late Qing dynasty inspired top.
And these brave fashionista village women really matched anything and everything with their cropped short sleeve outer coat (banbi). These women basically piled on every single style of Tang dynasty undergarment to show they are wearing undergarments before their mainouter dress. GIVE ME MY TANG CLEAVAGES!!
It’s like wearing a veil on top of a mask…
Ok, fine, I get it. The designer is trying to show that they are country bumpkins trying to look graceful and elegant like the Tang aristocrats. So their garishly paired dresses and overtly conserative necklines make sense in that context.
What Mulan wore was also nothing like anyone in her time-period. Perhaps her mom is me in my past life, obsessed with historical dress-ups and kept/acquired an ancient gown or perhaps her mom inherited it from her ancestors because she brought honour to her family. Oh wait, she couldn’t have cos she didn’t give birth to any male heir unlike in the original Ballad where Mulan at least had a brother! Hmm..
Anway, back to Mulan’s matchmaking dress. It’s called a Quju and was worn a few hundred years before the Tang dynasty which majority of the film’s aesthetics was supposedly based on. I did a quick summary of history of Chinese fashion in the chart below and where her dress fit in.
The one-piece wraparound robe-dress was unique to the 3rd century and before, after which, this style of dressing slowly faded into obscurity with most Han Chinese women adopting a two-piece top-bottom dressing style. So that piece that Mulan wore has gotta be an antique piece, possibly more valuable than any of our branded gowns today.
Also in the ancient dynasties, to have embroideries and decorations on the collars and sleeves, one have to be the ruling elites, thus the Chinese term “ling xiu”领袖 today still refers to the leader of a group. So to have her gown being so decorative at the sleeves and collar from that period, one wonders if Mulan’s mom was a distant descendant of some royalties.
BUT WAIT! Her ancient royal ancestor could time travel like the emperor too! Maybe the imperial ‘qi’ helped them to do so… and Mulan inherited it from her mom despite her muggle Dad. Coincidentally, they also time-travelled to the Qing dynasty!
Look at these details… and the colours.. so bright and saturated and artificial that it could only be produced after mid 1800s when the artificial dyes were invented. Also, the motifs and style in which the machine-embroidered pieces looked very Qing dynasty. Yes, with a budget of 200 million USD, I’d expect more hand made artisan intricate and fine things…
Of course butterflies have exited for a long time and were used as motifs in ancient Chinese for a long time too, but they looked like these in the Tang dynasty:
leftmost: the butterfly motifs from Tang dynasty middle: a container with butterfly surrounding the flora pattern in the middle rightmost: a detailed butterfly motif
And the butterflies became fancier, livelier and and sexier later on.
left: Ming dynasty butterfly motifs right: Qing dynasty butterfly motifsA Qing dynasty robe with butterfly motif embroidered
So yes, the piece that Mulan wore for matchmaking was what the art and fashion world would call a “fusion” piece (probably sells better than antique pieces). Blending the western invention of synthetic dyes in mid 1800s with the Eastern Han dynasty style robe of the 2nd century or so, peppered with some Qing oriental manchu butterfly motif for their dynamism.
5. Mulan’s mom is actually a time-travelling historical dress-up fan albeit a little noob
Besides the heirloom-time-travelling-fusion-matchmaking dress that Mulan’s mom owned, she also did Mulan’s make-up. That’s something I really would want to discuss cos it’s the funnest part! For this part, I especially consulted a researcher specialising in ancient Chinese make-up re-creation–Kasia Gromek so we could understand the raw material a bit better.
BROWS There were many different things that were used for brow powder and this greenish/blue pigment (Chinese didn’t really differentiate blue and green in writing in the past, as did Japanese, yes we’re all the same) would be sold as an exotic brow colouring make-up from “Persia”. As with today, “Made in Persia” definitely sounded better than “Made in China” to the Tang populace who were obsessed with the foreign imports and culture. Such an item would command a super huge premium. Although according to Kasia, the actual item is probably “Made in India” and from a mixture of indigo (blue pigment) and henna.
In another account I read (not sure of it’s authenticity), there was also a mention that it was a greenish/turquoise pigment from copper after it oxidises and produced something like verdigris which is toxic to the body, and the Chinese called it Copper brow pigment. But Kasia said such pigments were used for paintings or glazes, not for make-up. But yes, I would say good on Mulan’s mom for nailing this! And her mom’s probably very rich… cos it’s not cheap at all. Usually it’s what the emperor would give to his concubines and apparently by Ming dynasty, a homegrown Chinese indigo would sometimes be sold as the original by some profiteering merchants (see that’s why the Chinese traditionally has always detested the merchant class). In the Ming dynasty, if you were caught doing it, the penalty is death. But it is a hugely profitable business so… there’ll always be takers.
There could also be mixtures made from lapis lazuli and malachite for the brows as re-created by Kasia below:
Fancy huh! A pity Mulan’s mom didn’t follow @hanfugirl otherwise she could accomplish real authentic looking Tang dynasty make-up with all these resources she owns.
FOREHEAD Forehead yellow powder is a make-up style that was more popular during the northern and southern dynasties, a hundred years or more before the Tang dynasty. It was said to be inspired by the Buddhist golden sculptures and their golden glow, and it is either the dried extract of yellow dye from safflower (super organic) which looks brownish actually, or a mineral like yellow-orange orpiment (the OG mineral make-up). However, because Mulan’s mom probably didn’t practise doing make-up for a while, so she kind of overdid the yellow. I would imagine that it would look more like this image that I did based on the kinda look from a few centuries before the film’s time period, when the yellow forehead style was at its peak in terms of popularity : In the original Ballad of Mulan it was mentioned that she pasted a yellow decoration on her forehead, so it could also be that she used a yellow or golden looking insect wing/paper/decorative thing to paste onto her forehead.
FOUNDATION Again, Mulan’s mom, like the emperor, is an anime and fan of Japan clearly. The base make-up in such thick white paste looks more like the type that Geishas use instead of how we think the ancient Chinese would. The ancient Chinese would use a mixture of lead white with starch which has a light shine to it, kinda like the look when you apply some shimmer base. So the look would probably be more like the image above than the geisha or mulan’s look in the film. Kasia re-created the actual base (no. 1) in her spare time, with a few alternatives that’s safe for application in modern days cos no one wants to die or let their face rot from lead poisoning. Mulan’s face looks more like no. 4 (except even thicker) which is also made from a traditional recipe but much later in the 15th century.
LIPS & ROUGE I think Mulan’s mom would do well to invest in a proper make-up class or even a painting class on blending. Perhaps she hasn’t left her village in a long tie, and lost touch with the latest trends and finesse of the Tang make-up in the capital city.
The rouge powder would’ve been made from safflower, while the lipstick (yea, they actually have tube-like lipsticks like what we have today way back in the Tang dynasty!) would’ve been made from the toxic vermillion. It’s a pity that Mulan’s mom hadn’t left the village in a while, otherwise we would be able to catch a glimpse of the Tang lipstick and realise just how advanced and sophisticated they had been! Nobody paints their lips this full in the past… Mulan’s mom was ahead of her time by 1,300 years.
I have taken the liberty to re-edit Mulan’s look to be more historically accurate. Trying hard to ignore the very out-of-place time-travelling china vases in the background and her dress.
Mulan’s mom really need to get out of her village more. She’s single handedly sabotaging Mulan’s chances at getting a match even if Mulan nailed it herself.
How Mulan’s mom would’ve done her make-up if she has been following @hanfugirl
5. The Matchmaker is the Red Queen in disguise
Up to this point, I’m inclined to think that the Mulan Universe is full of mutants whose “qi” could help them travel across time and space. And the women in particular didn’t bother hiding them, in fact, they have been flaunting them IN YOUR FACE through fashion. Also, they have an obsession with the Qing dynasty and occasionally, the Japanese. Mulan really should’ve studied fashion history better so she could stop them and form some kind of girl power alliance.
I think the matchmaker couldn’t rid herself of her red queen vibe however hard she tries.
The Matchmaker is definitely the Red Queen in a Chinese woman’s skin. Her sartorial style betrays her real identity except for the fact that had she retained her tiny lips, she might look more convincing as a Tang woman.
The Red Queen definitely is a fan of the Qing dynasty, and takes an almost Japanese Oiran approach to the accessorising herself with Qing dynasty hairpins.
Cloud shoulder is in a very Qing style with high collars no less! The hairpin looks like what’s literally known as “ear-digging-spoon” hairpin.
The concept of cloud shoulder has been around in Chinese fashion for thousands of years, before the Tang dynasty, but it was only worn by the Empress as her ceremonial dress. Thus further proving my hypothesis that the Matchmaker is the Red Queen in disguise, because otherwise, How Dare She?!?!
Tang dynasty painting supposedly credited to the famous Tang painter Wu Daozi with the empress at the rightmost of the painting in her ceremonial dress which featured a cloud shoulder.
cloud shoulders worn by Ming and Qing women in Han Chinese dressing style
The cloud shoulder was more commonly used amongst civilians/plebeians in the Ming and Qing dynasty, unlike what the costume designer of Alice in Wonderland II claimed.
The sequel picks up when Alice has returned from a trip to Asia, and she wears a colorful look procured on her journey for most of the film. Atwood said it was “loosely based on the imperial costumes in China,” and it features a decorative purple tunic embroidered with little hats and rabbits, surrounded by a flower border based on traditional embroidery.
-Colleen Atwood
Atwood might be disappointed to know that the cloud shoulders, top-bottom dress combination and stripped skirts are nowhere near what the imperial Manchurians would wear. Rather, it’s the civilian/plebeian Han women’s attire. Not everything about China needs to add an “imperial” to make it sound fancy. Note how similar the butterfly embroidery on Alice is to the one in Mulan.
I find it hilarious that designers (both Chinese *cough* Guopei *cough* and the West) love to refer to the Chinese ‘imperial’ family as their design inspiration while getting their inspirations mainly from the commoners actually. Yes, I get it, it’s marketing fluff talk. The Manchurian imperial family’s dresses are extremely boring actually because of all the rules they had to adhere to, better luck with the free-and-easy commoners!
The hairpins from Qing dynasty were also worn in a much more delicate and subtle manner by women of the past:
Compared to how the Japanese Oiran would wear theirs:
Perhaps the Red Queen’s too obsessed with the Japanese aesthetics and infused it in her Tang-Qing-fusion dressing as well.
Since we’re on the topic of ear-digging hairpins, please indulge me in a quick perusal of the beautifully and intricately crafted pins (the show really don’t do them justice):
JUST IMAGINE…
Overall, I’m actually disappointed in the production value of the costumes and make-up in the show. There’re a lot of lost opportunities to showcase the Tang culture and fashion which featured really brightly coloured dresses (which the show has) that are tastefully matched and not kitschy (which they are in the film).
The Tang dynasty has so many dramatic make-up styles for the crew to choose from, such as eyebrows, forehead decoration and lips as these:
However dramatic the brow or forehead decoration, the lips are always small!
But no, instead, we get Paul Frank lookalikes.
If I have it my way, the characters could look like these (based on my courtesan series):
MULAN AND SISTER IN NORMAL SETTING
Mulan needs to hide their time travelling “qi” better by not sporting such modern hairstyle. She could, with her sister, consider a more Tang dynasty teenager/youth hairstyle such as the above. And to have proper banbi instead of what looks like an apron.
MULAN DURING MATCHMAKING
Mulan could wear this set for her matchmaking session. I’m pretty sure she could reuse this set for her grand audience with the emperor at the end too. Or, Ming Na Wen could consider this instead.
THE CONNIVING WITCH
Why fight force with force. Chinese women are often likened to being like water, and a villain need not be all brute force to seem strong like maleficent. She could be strong in yielding others’ strength and power for her own, like the ways of taichi.
THE BADASS MATCHMAKER WITH SIDEKICK
Since matchmakers need to be in the forefront of fashion, they could wear the super elaborate big hairdo and another with low neckline. Instead of modern looking teacups which would be too small for the Tang appetite, they could be super badass and be playing drinking games over a game of backgammon. They remain super colourful, properly colour-coordinated, and be period accurate.
Taking a step back, if I’m someone completely ignorant of the Chinese culture, I’d love Mulan’s colourful stereotypes because they conform to my expectation of how Chinese should look. Cheap, kitschy, exotic.
Like these shoes which have been done in collaboration with Disney by a supposedly famous UK brand (supposedly because I didn’t know them before, so I guess not famous enough!), it shows that there is a real market out there who expects such visuals presented in Mulan:
Nevermind that Lotus/Waterlily has nothing to do with Mulan… as long as it looks like it’s remotely Chinese-y, we’ll just stick it onto the shoes and call it “Warrior Heart”, whatever that means.
It’s ok that a lotus shoes has the same symbolic meaning as the kinda shoes for the dead. Because Warrior Heart is like Brave Heart, you need to die before you can prove your courage for real.
Lots more to rant, but I decide to be positive and will get started on the parts where it showed attempts at being historically accurate in the next post.
The Chinese has an almost pathological obsession with beautiful feathers.
The Tang dynasty emperor from the 8th Century fell in love with a piece of Indian music called the Brahmin Tune and decided to adapt it into his Chinese court to be played and danced to. He renamed the dance and music Raiment of rainbows and feathers. Instead of kingfisher feather as what most sources said, I think the dancer (Lady Yang) probably wore an outer coat made of different coloured feathers such as peacock, pheasant, and perhaps even parrot (I will talk about parrots in the 8th century in detail the next time)!Nevertheless, the craft of kingfisher feather accessories remains a highly mysterious and valued craft unique to China.
Tang dynasty China was one of the earliest periods with documented proof that feathers were used widely for decorations. It was such a ‘fashion statement’ that even the Japanese adopted this technique in their art from the same period.
I thought of doing one entry related to feathers in particular. And the wonderful brilliance of colours adored by the ancient Chinese (men and women alike, mind you~!).
Example of an antique Kingfisher accessory and you could see the slight change in colour because of the different angle of light that is reflected from the feather. It varies a little when you tilt it.
The oldest use of feathers in Chinese textiles (and accessories) was said to date to as far back as 2,000 years ago during the Han dynasty where the use of the word 翡翠(feicui) which refers to Jadeite today, was originally used to refer to the Kingfisher feathers. Jadeite, actually has a very short history in Chinese culture, as it was from Myanmar and was not very valued by the Chinese until mid to late Qing dynasty (last 300 yrs or so). Nephrite was the kind of jade highly valued by the ancient Chinese.
Anyway, while there were brief mentions of such in poems from about 2,000 years ago, and an excavation discovery from the period belonging to the Xiongnu nomadic tribes revealed textiles made of silk and kingfisher feather–definitely a Chinese influence:
Although it’s not a physical dress made of kingfisher feather that we could get hold of from China itself, or any accessory during that period, but we could definitely see hints of it on paintings or from certain use of feathers in artefacts. Nobody ever confirmed it, but it definitely looks probable that the blue tinge on the crown of the courtesans from Tang was from the kingfisher feathers.
There is no surviving physical kingfisher feather from that period in China, but we could still find remnants of feather decoration on the screens of Shosoin (Collection of the Japanese emperor in the 8th century) below:
It’s interesting to note that the women depicted on the screens look very much like Tang dynasty women, but it was an item made in Japan in a Tang style. How do we know? The feathers of course! Scientists have managed to examine whatever feather was left from the 8th century on the screen, and concluded that they were taken from a bird native to Japan! So it is likely that the Japanese got inspired by the crafts and practices in Tang dynasty China (since they were really quite big on Chinese culture then), that they decided to do a local interpretation of it!
Back to the Chinese imperial use of kingfisher feathers, the Song dynasty emperor was known to award his court officials with robes made from a wide range of materials including one which was made of kingfisher feathers. The practice of making fabric from kingfisher feather dates to about Tang dynasty (some 1,300 yrs ago) as mentioned in famous poet Wang Wei’s poem from that period.
During the Qing dynasty, we could find emperor’s robes made from peacock feather threads. Yes, that’s the peacock feather threads mentioned in the Yanxi Palace drama show as well, except that the one they used in the show looked nothing like the actual one:
One thing about beautiful things such as the shine and colours of silk threads and feathers, is that cameras have problem capturing them in their full glory. The texture is just really hard to captured in a 2D image since the colours of feathers tend to change with the varying angles of light. So the actual imperial robe with the peacock feather looks rather underwhelming in an image:
But if you look unclose, you could probably imagine how exquisite it would’ve been if you see it in person up close and personal:
Just now I mentioned the Chinese opera-like kingfisher feather crown in the Tang dynasty painting. Perhaps it is pure coincidence, but traditional Chinese Opera singers would break their back to get their hands on an entire full hair decoration made of kingfisher feathers.
It was said that the most famous opera singer in the early 20th century, Mei Lan Fang, owned a kingfisher feather full set of headdress made from ‘soft’ kingfisher feathers. Kingfisher feather accessories are divided into ‘hard’ feathers which are coarser and ‘soft’ feathers which are finer. There are altogether 4 types of kingfisher feathers often used in Chinese traditional accessories (mainly for the imperial family or aristocrats in the distant past, and whoever could afford it in the recent hundred of years).
As you can see above, the hard feathers are a lot larger than the soft ones, but even that is not too large at only about 7cm long. The small one’s about 2-3 cm long. Out of which, 60% of them can’t be used due to the existence of black or grey parts or other ‘less pure’ colours.
That is why it was highly controversial lately for Chinese opera singers to admit to owning real kingfisher feather crowns.
In case you think only the Chinese is capable of thinking up such a way of decorating themselves, hold my baijiu while I whip out the dark history of the West’s use of birds as accessories (includes kingfisher too). It went as far as using an entire bird (completely indiscreet I know, hurts my Asian aesthetics *hairtoss moment*).
Towards late Qing dynasty (the last 200 years), there was a switch to use cloisonne in place of kingfisher feather accessories–cheaper and less fragile. But the kingfisher feathers still has its fan. The last kingfisher factory in China closed in 1933 due to poor economic performance (not so much of the ban).
Like the West, there are laws against capturing kingfishers as they are considered endangered species or protected species. But it was not enforced by the government.
Dyed goose feather (dyed is not dead, no goose is harmed in the process)
Silk or synthetic coloured threads
Well, at the end of the day, it’s really a personal choice. If you wish to YOLO or you wish to do your part in preserving this endangered species of bird.
I am working with a silk-threads craftsperson to recreate certain antique kingfisher pieces, and you can order them from my online shop from November onwards. Yes, will be working on a few items for the shop to raise fund for the performance I’m putting up next year. So stay tuned~!
Meanwhile, here’s a visual feast of the many paintings and artefact of ancient empress and palace women in their beautiful kingfisher feather accessories. Also, beyond accessories, they even made fans, screens and decorated cups with the feathers!
If you’re interested in knowing more about this craft, I have also done up a few “Fact or Fiction” clarification at the end of the article because I do realise that people like to sensationalise things they don’t know much about, or they villainfy things they don’t agree with. Both of which are not useful in understanding this craft.
even the cup is decorated with kingfisher feather
crown made of kingfisher
kingfisher feather fan
Statement: Practitioners pluck the feathers out from birds while they were alive to ensure that the colours of the feather remain brightly coloured.
Verdict: Fiction. People of different agenda tend to sensationalise this trade or craft. The businessmen trying to make it seem like it’s a mysterious colour that has to go through certain “ritual” that’s somewhat mystical to get the colour. Animal rights people trying to make it seem like it is a really cruel trade. The truth is somewhere in the middle especially if you are meat-eater. Since ancient times dead birds have been given as tribute from southern cities or southeast asian region to China and feathers were taken from these corpses.
Statement: The newer kingfisher feather accessories used leftover feathers from the Qing dynasty, leftover feathers from opera troupes or feathers from people who got them before the last kingfisher factory closed in 1933. So it was not killing new birds.
Verdict: Fiction. They are just statements to make you feel better about buying these items. Unlikely to have such abundance of feathers to support so many accessories with such large surface area. Also, it is much more economical to kill new birds than to buy from antique dealers. So if you buy any kingfisher feather accessories that are made in recent years, or antique kingfisher feather accessories that are newly repaired, do know that they’re probably newly killed birds. Although, there are also officially sourced (so not illegal) kingfisher feathers which the Chinese government would get for purposes such as repair of artefacts, or making special items as dignitary gifts etc.
Statement: The vibrant colours on the kingfisher feather does not fade with passing time.
Verdict: Fact. Provided you keep it in pristine condition away from dust and other physical touch etc. Never touch the surfaces with your hands. It is tempting, but resist you must. Dyed goose feather and dyed silk would fade over time (but it’s probably over a long time) especially with constant exposure to sunlight. Cos we all know how fragile silk can be. Feathers, on the other hand, are used to such exposures.
Statement: Kingfisher feather accessories demand is as bad as ivory.
Verdict: Tricky question. Fact if you look at it from the angle of unnecessary killing of a life for one’s vanity. Fiction if you are looking at this being the main cause of bird extinction. Lost of habitat is often the larger concern for the survival of this beautiful bird. The average lifespan of a common kingfisher (there are over 120 species of them) is 5-7 years, although a rare few could live up to 16 years. The reproduction/replacement rate of the bird is also a lot faster than elephants. Plus, the demand for kingfisher feather really isn’t very high as there are many substitutes that are 1/10th the price around. The resale value of kingfisher feather is also not as high as ivory (since actually there are also a lot of kingfisher birds around so there’s no limited supply at this point) so there is not much incentive for people to stock up and sell at higher value.
#Hanfugirl 