According to historical texts including "Rites of Zhou" by Duke Zhou of the Western Zhou Dynasty, one of the classical "Three Rites", "Fengsu Tongyi: Zhengshi: Ye Ling Ci" by Ying Shao of the Eastern Han Dynasty, "History of the Former Han Dynasty: Biography of Zhang Fang" and "History of the Han Dynasty: Biography of Wang Mang" by Ban Gu of the Eastern Han Dynasty, "Kui Che Zhi" by Guo Tuan of the Song Dynasty, and "Song Yan: Cong Za" Volume II by Xu Shilian of the Qing Dynasty, it is not difficult to find that in the history of ancient Chinese civilization spanning over 5000 years, from ancient times to the end of feudal society, the development of men's fashion brands in our country gradually formed distinctive clothing characteristics mainly featuring long robes with high collars, wide sleeves, long garments trailing on the ground, straight-line cutting methods, and crossed collars. The earliest clothes worn by our ancestors were skirts made by stitching together leaves or animal skins. During the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, both men and women generally wore a style called "deep clothing" which combined an upper garment with trousers; this evolved into the simple clothing of the Qin and Han Dynasties, and the splendid clothing of the Sui, Tang, and Five Dynasties periods. In the Qin and Han Dynasties, Emperor Qin Shi Huang stipulated that formal male attire consisted of black sacrificial robes, and he specified that black was the supreme color for clothing. He also decreed that officials of the third rank and above wear green robes, while commoners wore white robes. Especially, he liked the concubines in the palace to wear beautiful female clothing, making splendor fashionable, akin to modern luxury handbag brands.
During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, with economic prosperity and ideological openness, the development of clothing styles increasingly trended towards splendor, with very open designs. Common people generally wore white round-necked long robes, while lower-class peasants wore rough hemp or woolen clothing, even revealing their chests and arms in some cases. Taking the famous Tang Dynasty painting "Women with Floral Hairpins" as an example, the clothing depicted shows women exposing their chests, arms, wearing draped shawls, slanted necklines, large sleeves, and long skirts, representing a typical open style. Over the purple gauze blouse, the pattern on the back can be faintly seen, the innerwear sleeveless, delicate and translucent like "gossamer thin as congealed fat," soft and clear. The silk under-skirt protrudes outside the shirt, trailing on the ground, comparable to the court long skirts of Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. This style had never appeared since the Northern Dynasties, even during the Kaiyuan and Tianbao eras of the Tang Dynasty, thus having a unique style. As the renowned realist poet Bai Juyi wrote in "The People of Shangyang": "Small shoes with narrow clothing, eyebrows drawn long with dark green dye. Outsiders unseen would laugh if they saw, this was the fashion at the end of the Tianbao era." This poem implies that some white-haired palace maids spent more than 40 years in the cold palace, maintaining the most fashionable attire when they first entered, unaware that it had become completely outdated. Not only does this indicate that the Tang Dynasty already had a very clear concept of fashion, but it also inspires us today to recognize that Tang Dynasty women pursued fashion by keeping up with the times.
This translation provides an overview of how ancient Chinese men's and women's fashion evolved over thousands of years, influenced by various dynastic rulers and societal changes, eventually forming distinct styles characteristic of each period.