Hi, sorry if this has been asked already..but what did people (like in the Tang Dynasty) wear during the winter? We see a lot of light hanfus, but I’m assuming they made ones out of thicker materials and fur for cold weather? Thanks and love your blog!
Hi, I’m glad you love my blog!
I discussed what people wore during winter here and here, so please check out those posts if you haven’t already! Basically, during winter people generally wore their usual styles of hanfu, but with thicker materials (and wool, fur, etc) & more layers to keep warm. Recent years have seen an impressive increase in the number and variety of winter hanfu available on the market.
For example, below are Tang dynasty-style winter hanfu from 如是观. The woman is wearing thicker, warmer versions of typical Tang clothing, and the man is wearing a brown qiuyi (fur-lined long coat) over a blue yuanlingpao (round-collar robe):
Below is an example of how layering can be done for a Tang woman in winter:
There’s actually a logical reason why Tang-style hanfu seems lighter than other styles. As mentioned in this post, the climate during the Tang dynasty was actually warmer relative to other dynasties. The aforementioned post links to an article from New Hanfu that states:
Mr. Zhu Kezhen (竺可桢先生), the founder of modern Chinese geography and meteorology, and a leading figure in the field of phenology, has studied the main trends of climate change in China over the last 5,000 years, using the 20th-century climate as a benchmark for comparison, and concludes: in ancient China, there were four warm periods, the Yangshao periods (仰韶时期, 5000 BC to 3000 BC), Yinxu periods (殷墟时期), the Spring and Autumn & Warring State periods, the Sui and Tang periods, and four cold periods, the late Shang and early Western Zhou periods, the late Northern Song and early Southern Song periods, and the late Ming and early Qing periods.
According to the literature, the Tang dynasty had “nineteen snow-free and ice-free years in winter and spring, the highest number of any dynasty in Chinese history”. In addition, biological phenomena such as the growing areas for warm area crops such as litchi, citrus, as well as areas for tropical animals. For example, during the Tang dynasty, Hunan, Sichuan, and Guizhou all offered rhinoceros horns to the imperial court, implying that there was a widespread presence of wild rhinoceroses in these areas, which prefer a warm, moist climate and are now only found in the tropics, evidence that the Tang dynasty was indeed warmer than modern times.
In terms of material, in the period of The Wei, Jin, and North-South dynasties, the climate was cold and dry, and wool knitting Chanyu (襜褕, a kind of Zhiju) and robes, as well as animal-skin furs, were popular at the time. As the climate warmed in the Tang dynasty, the thicker garments were replaced by silk and linen-based fabrics. This is confirmed by archaeological excavations of Tang dynasty figures and some murals in tombs, where men, women, and children of all ages were thinly dressed. The Tang dynasty Tan collar with large sleeves Shan was the most open style of women’s clothing in the history of Chinese feudal society. In addition to the social climate and the openness of ideas of the time, the warm climate of the Tang dynasty was also an extremely important factor.
However, by the late Tang dynasty, at the end of the eighth century AD, the climate turned drastically colder again. Some of the paintings show skirts from the late Tang period with new designs for warmth, as well as the addition of a robe to the skirt, which may have been considered in the context of keeping warm.
Conversely, Ming-style hanfu seems warmer than other styles because the Ming dynasty’s climate was relatively colder! Now I’m not a climatologist so I can’t verify how accurate these statements are, but it’s quite fascinating if true.
For more resources, please check out my winter wear tag. Hope this helps!