Li Doudou’s gray kitten squeezes in next to her as she sits
painstakingly applying makeup and putting up her hair in a bun adorned
with elaborate ornaments.To get more
hanfu, you can visit shine news official website.
Looking like she has just stepped off the set of a Chinese
historical drama, the 26-year-old property appraiser is wearing a long
Ming dynasty-style blue tunic with sweeping sleeves and a flower design
outlined in gold and silver thread, paired with a flowing orange skirt.
Li, who lives in Hebei province in northeast China, is a devotee of
the hanfu movement, which has spanned a decade and in the last year has
seen a spike in followers, partly thanks to social media.
Hanfu, meaning “Han clothing,” is based on the idea of donning
costumes worn in bygone eras by China’s dominant Han ethnic group. Some
of the most popular styles are from the Ming, Song and Tang
dynasties.Hanfu enthusiasts doubled to 2 million in 2018 from a year
earlier, according to a survey by Hanfu Zixun, a popular community
account on the Wechat social media platform.
“Everyone wants to share what is beautiful and has spread the word
via platforms like Little Red Book, Weibo and Wechat,” said Dai, who
only gave her last name. She is a public relations manager at Chong Hui
Han Tang, a 13-year-old national chain of Han clothing stores.Li donned
her first gown in March and has lost count of how many hanfu outfits she
has in her wardrobe.
Li was inspired to buy hanfu by an account dubbed Nanzhi999, which
has 1.1 million followers on the Douyin short video social media
platform. A tall, slim man posts videos on this account in which he is
dramatically transformed into a beautiful young woman in traditional
Chinese gowns.
Many Hanfu followers like the clothes for the fashion statement, but
some — Li included — say its significance is greater.“It’s to propagate
China’s traditional culture,” said another girl, who only gave her
surname, Li, at an event to mark the Chinese equivalent of Valentine’s
Day in Beijing last month.
Those who have studied hanfu say the movement is a mix of history
and fantasy, said Kevin Carrico, author of “The Great Han.”“It’s very
much taking a modern concept and projecting it into the past,” he
said.Hanfu practitioners say they are apolitical, although they point to
instances where hanfu gets support from the government.
The Communist Youth League organized a Chinese National Costume Day
for the first time last year, urging people to share their ethnic
outfits online. Hanfu also aligns with President Xi Jinping’s call to
promote traditional Chinese values.
What keeps people reaching for their hanfu outfits is often more
personal.Since starting to wear hanfu, Li Doudou has attended a class on
traditional tea ceremonies. She is also planning to learn to play the
guqin, an ancient seven-stringed zither.“The biggest change for me
personally is it gives me more self-confidence,” she said. “When I wear
hanfu, I feel like I’m the most beautiful person in the world.”
The Wall