Mamianqun
[7] As a type of xifu, Chinese opera costumes, the mamianqun maintains its long tradition and continues to be worn nowadays.
[10] In the Qing dynasty, the mamianqun were also decorated with auspicious ornaments and patterns; these auspicious ornaments and pattern reflected the appropriate situational context and the social occasions in which its wearer partook; the colours and ornaments used in the mamianqun also had to be appropriate for the occasion and sometimes even reflected the interpersonal relationship between people during an important event, such as a wedding, and/or the social hierarchy between women in a household; e.g. a principal wife of the head of a household would wear a red skirt decorated with a Chinese dragon while a secondary wife was not allowed to wear red and had to wear green instead as red colour was an exclusive right for the first wife according to the legal code of the Qing dynasty.
[16]: 144 Each of these two panels were identical and formed half of the skirt, which were then sewn together a single waistband[3] creating the overlapping front.
[17]: 37 [note 2] The historical mamianqun is typically decorated with pleated side panels,[1][2]: 54 gores, which can also vary in styles and types.
[18] The trims which decorated mamianqun of the Qing dynasty did not only impacted the overall appearance of the skirt, but also influenced the way it would move as the wearer takes walk.
Embroidery is worked upon two pieces, and upon the plaits within and without in such a way that as the wearer steps, the action of the feet alternatively opens and shuts them on each side, disclosing the part or the whole of two different colored figures.
[3] During the Song dynasty, the mamianqun first appeared and apparently could have absorbed some influences from the clothing worn by China's nomadic neighbours.
Those two forms of wrapped skirts were found in the Song dynasty tomb of Huang Sheng in Fuzhou, Fujian Province.
[16] It was made of 2 pieces of fabric which overlapped at the central region at the front and the back; the openings of the skirt allowed horseback riding.
[24]: 55 According to the Jianglinjizazhi《江邻几杂志》of the Song dynasty:[25][24]: 55 "Women did not wear broad trousers [宽裤] and apron [襜], and for the convenience of donkey riding, the whirling skirt [xuanqun, 旋裙] must have openings at both the back and the front [必前后开胯].
This style was popular among female performers in the capital but it was admired and imitated by female members of the literati families, which was indeed a shame".Horse riding and donkey riding was common in the Song dynasty as means of transportation; according to Wen Yanbo of the Northern Song dynasty, "upper-class families in town and countryside [...] all raised horses and rode them instead of walking" while in the History Narrated at Ease, volume 3, it is also recorded that "donkeys were for rent in the capital, and thus people often meet each other in the street on donkeys".
For example, Chinese women rode donkeys while playing luju, which was variation of the ancient version of polo, jiju (击鞠); the luju was a popular form of physical activity in the Song and Tang dynasties, and was often played by women and children as they perceived donkeys as being smaller, less violent and more manageable than horses.
[26]: 40 Illustration of two elderly women riding donkeys and wearing veiled-hat, known as gaitou, can be found in the Song dynasty painting《Along the River During the Qingming Festival》.
[27]: 73 [28]: 88 Similarly, a design of two-panel skirts worn by imperial concubines of the Southern Song dynasty during the reign of Emperor Lizong, known as ganshangqun (赶上裙), can be found in the Songshi.
[33]: 104 Therefore, Han Chinese women in the Qing dynasty continued to preserve Hanfu features in their dress and styles.
[40][41][42] The yuehuaqun (月华裙) was one of the most popular form of mamianqun style variant in the Qing dynasty;[33]: 104 It appeared at least since the 17th century where it was recorded by Li Yu (李漁):[10] "Recently in Suzhou the fashionable 'hundred pleated skirt' (baijianqun;百襇裙) is considered very beautiful.… but there is a new style, the so-called 'moonlight skirt' (yuehuaqun; 月華裙) – with many colors set within each pleat, as if reflecting the light of a brightly lit moon".The yuehuaqun was a skirt made of 12 gores, in which each gore consists of a different coloured fabric.
The fengweiqun was characterized by long and narrow strips of fabric with sharp bottom ends which could be sewn to the waistband of the skirt.
[44]: 49 The edges of these fabric strips could also be decorated with gold threads or lace, which would make the skirt appear very luxurious.
[2]: 193 The langanqun (阑干裙 or 栏杆裙) was characterized with sharp trims (typically black in colour) in the shape of langan (Chinese: 欗杆; pinyin: lángān; lit.
[note 3] In the Republic of China, the mamianqun was still being worn by Han Chinese women even at the time when the cheongsam was created in the 1920s.
[2]: 303 The size of the pleats, as well as its depth, reflect the different roles types of the actors and are used as distinguishing indicators.
[50][51] The Xiuhefu is a modern recreation version of the Qing dynasty wedding aoqun which was worn by the Han Chinese women,[50][51] composed of a lower and an upper garment.
[50][53] It has panels of flat fabric, which is embellished with decorative designs which uses an embroidery technique known as Chaoxiu (Chinese: 潮绣).
[52] Compared to the historical mamianqun which has qunmen (裙门; 'skirt door') or mamian (马面裙; 'horse face') created by the overlapping characteristics of the skirt, the flat and straight panels of fabric used in the Xiuhefu are added on top of the pleated skirt, like a pendulum; it can also have more than two visible flat panels.
[50][53] The Qing dynasty mamianqun made its apparition in the magazine Vogue published on the 15th December 2011 where it was presented as forming part of the "Boudoir Set" along with the Qing dynasty-style ao and Chinese shoes; Vogue also recommended that people shopped in Chinatown for the "Boudoir" set where it was a common place for Chinese women to wear the aoqun.
[58][59] Following the Hanfu movement, the mamianqun re-appeared in several fashion magazines, including the Women's Wear Daily published on 25 November 2020,[60] in Vogue published on the 8th March 2021,[61] in the Harper's Bazaar on 16 July 2021,[49] The mamianqun also appeared in the animated film Turning Red (2022) by Domee Shi.
In 2022, French luxury fashion house Dior fell under heavy public criticism in China after the release of a new black flared, pleated midi-skirt for its Fall 2022 collection which was officially branded as its "hallmark silhouette".
"[70] while another Instagram user commented on the official Dior account:[71]"Les références culturelles à notre pays [Chine] sont plus que bienvenues mais cela ne signifie pas pour autant que vous pouvez détourner notre culture et nier le fait que cette jupe est chinoise !"
"].Under these accusations, Dior did not immediately respond to a request for comment[66] and decided to stop this sale in the Mainland China's website to avoid controversy.
[70] On July 23, about 50 Chinese overseas students in Paris made a protest in front of a Dior flagship store at Champs-Élysées,[72][73] they used the slogan "Dior, Stop Cultural appropriation" and "This is a traditional Chinese dress" written with a mixture of French and English,[74] and call for other overseas students from the United Kingdom and the United States for relay, the Communist Youth League of China also expressed support for this protest.
