Thank you always for all the wonderful content!! May I ask what is, in your opinion, the main motivations for the Hanfu Revival Moviment?
Hi! Glad you like my content, and thanks for the question!
The motivations for the hanfu revival movement are addressed in the following posts: 1, 2, 3, so please check them out if you haven’t already. Basically, my opinion is that the main motivations are: culture, history, sense of heritage & identity, and aesthetics. Also, there’s a recent report on the state of the hanfu industry as of Q1 2020 here, which has a section on the reasons why people buy hanfu:
According to this report, the reasons people gave are:
1) Liking hanfu culture - 40.5%, 2) Hanfu looks good - 36.9%, 3) To promote traditional Chinese culture - 33.6%, 4) To express individuality - 33.3%, 5) Needed for special occasions - 31%, 6) To follow trends - 20.2%, 7) Because of influence from others - 16.7%, 8) To gift to others - 8.3%, 9) Other - 2.4%.
In addition, the report has a section on how Chinese netizens get in contact with hanfu culture, which I think also gives insight into motivations:
These channels of contact/exposure include:
1) Guzhuang (ancient costume) dramas - 61.7%, 2) Online social media - 50.5%, 3) Hanfu promotion events - 30.6%, 4) News reports - 30.1%, 5) Interest clubs - 27.7%, 6) Relatives and friends - 18.9%, 7) Other - 1.9%.
As a result of this growing interest and recognition, the number of hanfu lovers has been growing at a swift rate. As the chart below shows, the amount of hanfu enthusiasts in China in 2019 was 3.56 million, with a year-on-year growth of 74.4%:
The growing number of hanfu lovers, along with “high consumption capacity and high user stickiness”, has in turn led to the rapid development of the hanfu market. In 2018, the hanfu sector’s revenue reached 1.08 billion yuan, and I mentioned in this post that sales were expected to rise significantly in 2019. Well, that prediction was accurate - the market sales volume in 2019 was 4.52 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth of 318.5%:
Overall, the hanfu revival movement is powered by many motivations, the primary ones relating to culture and aesthetics. Its momentum in recent years is fueled by the proliferation of ancient costume dramas and social media. It’s also an outlet for self-expression - hanfu is rooted in thousands of years of history and culture, while simultaneously having infinite capacity for reinvention and creativity. This last part is what I think makes hanfu so appealing to younger people.
Hope this was informative!
(Chinese hanfu street style photos via 她街拍)
