Styles from the Steppes: Styling
Nav: Photoshoot Duo/Esther/Tara // Background & Influences // Styling // Macaron Design Background // Ferghana Design Background
Raw of Esther that didn't make the cut—the smiling didn't go with the fierce editorial vibe as well but I think it's super cute
Again not going over the actual clothes here, just the casting/accessories/hair/makeup!
Both of our models are born and raised in the Bay Area. Esther is of Chinese-Mongolian heritage, which we felt was fitting based on the probable descendants of the Xianbei people that stayed on the grasslands after Northern Wei in the Rouran Khaganate, whose descendants much later unified into the Mongol Empire and developed a culture that we now consider the Mongolian identity. Mongols are one of the 56 ethnic minorities recognized by China (although of course that list is not totally accurate and mostly politically motivated), but they make up only a tiny part of the population, even in Inner Mongolia, where Han people make up 78.7% of the population and Mongolians 17.7% (as of 2020).
We found Esther through a long chain of references while casting for this project (friend of a friend of a friend of a friend?). We wanted a slightly more feminine look to contrast with the more androgynous styling of the Ferghana set. Esther was cast last out of the three (one couldn't make it in the end), but her lower visual weight complemented Tara perfectly (also we made it yuri because of course). She was also the only model that had ever drawn a bow before; though her experience was still limited, it definitely still helped.
Earrings: From 黛組學 DaiStudio on tb (listing photo above left), their 金馬賀歲 earring design. Made of marbled-patterned acrylic with a horse-shaped filled engraving. The big round pendant shapes are similar to some of the popular large drop earrings in women's western fashion style, and the marbled texture mimics the look of shell, a common jewelry material during the Northern Dynasty. We felt it was important to include earrings for both looks, since earrings were so associated with Hu people up until Song.
Nails: From Taghesnail 指尖造物 on tb (listing photo above left), their 蒙古馬 design in white. Tanghesnail is a nail studio based in Inner Mongolia with the mission of preserving and sharing Mongolian cultural elements through art (they're super cool I recommend checking them out!). Unfortunately we weren't able to get super good closeups of the nails (we were kind of on a time crunch racing against the sunset) but we did get a few partial shots.
Pibo: From 初九織造 on tb, their 金背鳥 pattern specifically. Only used a couple times as an accessory tied around one leg, one method of keeping the extra fabric from getting in the way—usually you'd pull up some of the fabric around it, but it ended up kind of falling back down a bit (we were moving around a lot).
Shoes: From 清歡閣 on tb (listing photo above left). Made of a really nice gold-flecked white fabric that worked really well with the lighter color scheme of the Macaron set (though lowkey the nice white fabric ended up getting destroyed after stepping in mud and cow pies all day, cons of having white shoes). Nonetheless a gorgeous pair of white boots that look a little more interesting than the plain white canvas that pretty much every other option is limited to.
Bracelet: Esther's personal zodiac bracelet (year of the horse).
Makeup is credited to my sister Yulan (ig: @/chlobaltblue), who usually does most of the makeup for our shoots. The key parts of Esther's look were what we called "sunburnt i've-been-standing-in-the-cold-winds-of-the-steppes-for-too-long-and-my-cheekbones-are-raw blush" and the two-toned pastel blue and pink eyeshadow to match the outfit, plus a muted rosy lip. There was some gold-tone highlight used to really pick up the golden hour sun rays where we wanted it to land.
A moment taken to pay respect to Yulan's spine
L: me doing Esther's base hair // R: Pile Of Braids
Hair is credited to Me! While brainstorming we initially weren't sure what to do with Esther's hair, especially since it was partially dyed. We went through a few ideas before we landed on braids, partially because of the loose association of braids with Hu people throughout history, and the association of braids with the equestrian world due to the horse girl french braid + the braiding of horse's manes and tails.
During the Yuan Dynasty, Mongolian people wore their hair in these small braided loops next to their ear that distinguished them from the Han people. You can tell a lot of the figurines apart by looking at their hair and how it's styled. This was a more editorial shoot, so I decided against just recreating that hairstyle (plus it would be inaccurate because the Mongolians weren't a thing yet during the Northern Wei Dynasty and I felt that would be confusing).
Instead I got the idea of ridiculously, comically long braids. I'm not sure exactly where I got this idea, probably just browsing random hairstyles and dance photos on XHS and Pinterest, but I felt that it would work well because Tara has such high visual weight and Esther is on the thinner side with a cooler, more muted color palette. Braids would let her take up more space in the camera.
The braids used are 4 meter long braided extensions that I purchased from Taobao (I made shorter 2m long ones myself using kanekalon braiding hair, but when I tested them on myself they weren't long enough for the effect I wanted and I couldn't find material long enough to make them any longer). I attached the ends to round gold carabiners that I had lying around (I use them for my keys/wallet, but I only needed one and they came in a set of eight, so there were extra).
The extensions were pretty heavy, so I used Esther's own hair to create strong attachment points reinforced in multiple places to spread out the pressure on her scalp, so that it wouldn't hurt. This was mostly accomplished through the use of multiple nested layers of french braiding, which widened the base area of the braids, and weaving the ends of the braids together so they were all connected to each other. At the end of the shoot Esther told me that she could feel the extensions pulling on her, but they never hurt and never loosened, so I think I was mostly successful.
I left a loop on both sides as attachment points for the carabiners, which were clipped on right before we started shooting so that we wouldn't have to deal with them in the car—it was a really interesting element to play with during posing; some of the shots we were thinking of didn't work out, while other poses that we didn't think of ended up looking super cool. We kept having to run around the hill to reposition them while dodging cow pies and thorns, which was honestly more cardio than I've done in the past month combined.
It was also a little bit of a safety hazard around the horses, because we didn't want them to step on the braids, so the rule was that we had to have at least one person holding each braid up off the ground before the horses were allowed to move. It worked out fine and the horses were also extremely fascinated with them for some reason (I guess they'd never seen hair this long before), so it was a great way to get their attention and make them look at the camera.
By the end of the shoot these things were biohazards, as they had been dragging through the brush and picking up mud, thorns, hay, and cow pie residue for hours, so unfortunately they had to be trashed :( but at least they are immortalized in the photos! And taking them off was basically instantaneous since they were attached by carabiners.
Raw of Tara that didn't make the cut (it's overexposed cuz it's not edited lol)
Tara was the first mdoel to be cast for this project—we know her because our moms were college friends. She is of Persian-Han Taiwanese heritage.
Even as early as Northern Wei, there is evidence of early contact between China and middle eastern states, including Iran/Persia at the time. Many of the Han-and-after artifacts in Northern China unearthed from locations near the border contain art that contains Parthian, Hellenistic, and Persian elements, including the rhytons appearing in Northern Dynasty linked-bead patterns and imported gemstones and beads appearing on necklaces and bracelets. It's hard to imagine just how far cultural exchange could go along the Silk Road, at a time when even the fastest possible travel modes were so slow; nevertheless, cultural elements from across the continent ended up in China, and vice versa.
While we think of most cultures as distinct, it doesn't and never has existed in a vacuum. Exchange has been happening since the beginning of time, especially in intersectional places closer to the borders between states—everything has always been impacted by everything else. Horses are an incredibly good example of an imported good that made its way into Chinese culture and mythology, despite coming from outside.
Tara was the perfect warm-toned, high-visual-weight model for the Ferghana set—also born in the year of the horse, she had the perfect fierce, confident energy needed to hold up the bright colors of this robe. She also made for an excellent visual foil against Esther.
Jeans: From Tara's own closet. Lowkey the jeans ended up mostly invisible because they were tucked into the boots, but I feel the need to mention them anyway. I explained most of the relevant information on Levi Strauss's blue jeans in the previous post, so I won’t get too far into it, but it was very much a multicultural invention: the indigo dye came primarily from India, the fabric innovation happened in Genoa, Italy (the origin of the word “jeans”) and Nimes, France (the origin of “denim” = “de Nimes,” from Nimes); the branding and propagation happened in San Francisco after Russian-American Jacob Davis and Bavarian-American Levi Strauss’s patented riveted blue jeans. Initially made as workwear for hard labor, they gained popularity among gold miners, vaqueros/cowboys, and railroad workers (including Chinese immigrants), and later made their way into popular fashion, where they became the closet staple they are today.
R: me wearing the hat as a test after I made the veil
Hat: Base from Amazon, modified by myself. The famous wide-brimmed felted cowboy hat was popularized by John B. Stetson in 1865. Functional and stylish, it quickly became an icon of the American West. It was particularly functional on horseback. Coincidentally, there was a similar hat popular from the Northern to Tang Dynasties in China called the weimao. It had a similar wide brim and tall dome protecting the wearer’s head from the elements, and is often—in fact, almost exclusively—depicted worn by women on horseback. In addition to the wide brim, many weimao also have a veil attached to the brim, offering additional coverage and modesty. The earliest forms of these veiled hats were called mili, with the veil usually extending to the floor; later these evolved into shorter shoulder-length veils that only covered the face. I may or may not do a short separate post on how I modified the red cowboy hat to include a detachable magnetic veil.
Boots: Also from Amazon. Boots were also choice horse-riding footwear in ancient China; to complete the western look we went with topstitched red cowboy boots. I’m pretty sure topstitching is just for decoration, but I’ve heard that the scalloped top is for better forward/backward mobility when the boot leg comes up to the calf, and the pointed toe makes it easier to find the stirrups without looking, plus of course the slight heel. This seemed fairly relevant given that the Northern Dynasty Xianbei attributed much of their military success to their invention of the stirrup. Chinese riding boots also tend to have pointed toes.
Gloves: Amazon lambskin cashmere-lined gloves. Full disclosure these were 100% just included because, uh, I thought they looked cool. Riding gloves are a thing too, but they tend to look kinda different from these, so... maybe a vague connection there?
Earrings: From 竹編飾品非遺坊 on tb. They’re handmade with curved bamboo strands, which we picked because the way they mirrored braids I put in her hair. I added a pearl and some jump rings as accents because Why Not, and I also replaced the finding (the part that goes into the piercing) with rounder ones that look more similar to historical earring hooks.
Makeup is once again credited to my sister Yulan. Tara's features are naturally very strong and well-defined (she showed up with a bare face and we thought she already had makeup on, I'm not kidding), so the makeup didn't need to do a lot of adjusting or defining, just some gold highlighter to emphasize the high points where we wanted the sun to hit, a red lip, and some super sharp eyeliner.
The markings on her face were partially inspired by common facial markings of the time.
I mostly improvised on this, but the main concept was pretty much just "lots of braids." Many of the ethnic groups considered Hu by ancient Han people traditionally wore braids in some way. Mongolian people, for example, can be easily distinguished from Han people in Yuan Dynasty paintings and sculptures because they wear their hair in three loops next to their ears.
Some Xianbei figurines also show Xianbei people wearing braided ponytails, though these are limited, because most Xianbei people usually wore their hair up underneath a hat or cap of some sort. My guess is that the braid might be what's underneath the cap, and what's depicted might be what it looks like once the cap is removed and the hair is allowed to fall down.
Tara's hair worked especially well for this because she has grown-out bleached hair, so the contrast ends up really stark against her roots. There are three dutch braids coming from either side of her temple towards the center, where they combine into a larger main braid. I put two tiny sections of snake braid up at the top of her head—they're very short, but that was the maximum length I could get them given the length of her hair. In any case, the blonde parts lay on top of the dark roots in a way that emphasized the contrast between parts of the hairstyle, which worked out really well.
