This week, we look at more Eastern Han Dynasty hanfu through pictures from Sinan Ge Hanfu‘s (Compass Pavilion Hanfu) 司南閣漢服 weibo.
Just going to make a note here that sometimes, clothing styles persist in different eras and groups go on a limb and do things like be creative or combine elements from different eras. Therefore, every now and again, some clothes get kind of hard to classify into a time period and we are left to rely on factors like fabric choice, style of the sleeves, make-up, adornments, etc. to guesstimate a time period. That being said, not everything we assign may be completely correct despite how much we try. Hanfu from this weibo are in the category that I would say are a bit more “creative” and tend to be a bit hard to classify so I am putting them in the period they would probably fit most closely in although some variance and arguments are probably possible for other periods.
More pictures below the cut.
Hanfu groups seem to work together so I apologize ahead of time in case there are any repeats. Also, please understand that sorting Hanfu by era can be hard due to similar styles carrying over into different eras, lack of historical evidence or knowledge, and various other factors.
The following are some links that may help you get some background information. Please let us know in the comment section if there are any other sites you may be able to recommend for more pictures.
General Chinese Clothing Timeline
Hanfu: General Information, Hanfu List
Random question – how heavy/light is this material? Because it looks like they wear a lot of different layers, and I imagine the summers could get pretty awful in that kind of clothing :o
As I tried to imply in the post, the styling of some of these pictures may not be the most “accurate” however, the fabric type does seem to point more towards the later Eastern Han Dynasty/Northern and Southern Dynasties.
Cloth during this period started to get lighter than in the Western Han dynasty and periods before that, according to my understanding. See below for pictures from weibos that tend to have more of a reputation for being more accurate (in chronological order):
Western Han dynasty:
https://cfensi.wordpress.com/2015/11/29/sinology-sunday-november-29-2015-2/
Eastern Han dynasty through some of the Northern and Southern Dynasties:
https://cfensi.wordpress.com/2015/12/06/sinology-sunday-december-6-2015-2/
Northern and Southern Dynasties and into some of the Sui and Tang dynasty:
https://cfensi.wordpress.com/2015/12/13/sinology-sunday-december-13-2015-2/
Also, these are mostly clothes from probably the upper class so that usually means you probably stayed indoors a lot so wearing lots of layers was probably less of an issue and may have even been more of an indication of social status. So to answer your question, based on my understanding, fabric from this era was probably lighter but then there’s the problem with layers I guess. Hope this helps. :)