Review on sleeve structure (接袖/jie1 xiu4/sleeve connection) from part 2, structure conventions:
"Hanfu sleeves, on the other hand, are never connected at the armpit—they are connected halfway down the arm. In other words, the piece of fabric that forms the body extends to also cover the upper arm part of the sleeve. The actual sleeve piece is connected to the body at the bicep/elbow area via a flat seam. (In the case of half- or no- sleeve garments there might just not be a separate sleeve piece.)"
Sleeve pieces are also draped over the shoulder with no shoulder piece. Most sleeve shapes fall very roughly into the categories of小袖/xiao3 xiu4/'Small Sleeve' or 大袖/da4 xiu4/'Large Sleeve' types, though this can vary, and some sleeve shapes can be regarded as kind of a middle size, but there are so many ways to categorize them (size? Popularity? Chronology?), so here they are in no particular order.
I'm not gonna use pictures of clothing on people with this one, mostly because the shape is really hard to discern when the fabric draped and folds as hanfu is wont to do. Instead you get my shitty handwriting and graph paper drawings. Sorry.
直袖 / ZHI2 XIU4 / STRAIGHT SLEEVE
Very basic straight sleeve. It's a rectangle. Usually narrow (30-10cm wide in my experience in the industry), but there are also straight sleeves that are super wide (Famensi pishan, various Song beizi). The main requirement is that the bottom sleeve seam is parallel to the shoulder line. Pretty much timeless.
窄袖 / ZHAI3 XIU4 / NARROW SLEEVE
Synonymous with 箭袖 / jian4 xiu4 / 'Arrow Sleeve.' Very similar to a straight sleeve, but the sleeve cuff is slightly narrower than the root, so the line made by the sleeve seam is slightly tilted rather than straight across. The cuff is usually between 20-10cm wide, and the root is usually under 30cm. If the cuff is more than twice the width of the root I would be more inclined to call it a feijixiu (see below), but there's some overlap between these categories. Also pretty much timeless, usually used for inner layers or dailywear.
More specific names may describe variations of narrow sleeves like 羊腿袖/yang2 tui3 xiu4/sheep's leg sleeve from the Song dynasty, a super-narrow form-fitted narrow sleeve.
飛機袖 / FEI1 JI1 XIU4 / AIRPLANE SLEEVE
Can be considered a type of 窄袖, with a straight but diagonal sleeve hem. The cuff is typically about half the width of the root; the root is usually at least 25cm wide in my experience. 'Airplane sleeve' is a modern colloquialism that became popular because the sleeve's shape looks like an airplane wing.
This is very specific to Song Dynasty women's wear (and Yuan Dynasty women's wear, if you consider Yuan Dynasty hanfu). The artifact directly supporting this sleeve shape is the Huangshengmu zhaixiu duanshan.
垂胡袖 / CHUI2 HU2 XIU4 / DROOPING SLEEVE
Mid-width sleeve usually characteristic of the earlier dynasties, from the earliest times up to the Wei/Jin dynasties. Characterized by a fairly wide sleeve root and a narrower sleeve cuff, with a curved belly-like shape. The midpoint of the sleeve may or may not briefly widen beyond the width of the root before narrowing back down at the cuff, giving it a 'drooping' appearance.
廣袖 / GUANG3 XIU4 / VAST SLEEVE
Catch-all term for extremely wide-cuffed sleeves, commonly known as 大袖/da4 xiu4/large sleeve. Usually has a root of at least 30cm and a sleeve opening of 60-120cm. Present throughout most dynasties in different forms, most often as formal outerwear (大袖衫）in the Tang, Song, and Ming Dynasties. The shape connecting the
Most guangxiu from the Ming Dynasty are 廣袖收祛/guang3 xiu4 shou1 qv1/closed vast sleeves, meaning that the front of the sleeve is closed, sewn up to a small opening for the wrist to come through.
窄臂大袖 / ZHAI3 BI4 DA4 XIU4 / NARROW-ARM LARGE SLEEVE
Mostly specific to the Northern & Southern Dynasties, though I've seen a couple Tang figurines with similar silhouettes. Has a fitted sleeve root typically under 30cm, sometimes as narrow as 15-20cm, that opens up after the elbow to a wide 60-120cm sleeve opening.
琵琶袖 / PI2 PA2 XIU4 / PIPA SLEEVE
Mostly specific to the Ming Dynasty, an iconic sleeve shape named for its resemblance to the shape of a Pipa instrument, a plucked string instrument sort of like a lute. The sleeve root is normally between 30-45cm, opening up slightly to a maximum width of between 35-65cm, and then curving smoothly back up to a sleeve cuff normally between 10-25cm. Can vary wildly in size—there are 'small' pipa sleeves and 'large' pipa sleeves, with the large ones normally being part of formal outerwear.
弓袋袖 / GONG1 DAI4 XIU4 / QUIVER SLEEVE
Also mostly specific to the Ming Dynasty, can be considered a Pipa sleeve that doesn't widen far beyond the sleeve root, instead curving back up gently towards the sleeve cuff. Sometimes there's a pleat made at the root of the sleeve to help with movement. Often seen as a more convenient alternative to the Pipa sleeve. The quiver here is referring to the bag you put arrows in (not the movement 'quivering') because the shape looks similar.
半袖 / BAN4 XIU4 / HALF SLEEVE
The name 'half-sleeve' is actually fairly misleading, because most 'half-sleeve' garments are either closer to 1/3 sleeve or 3/4 sleeves. The important thing to remember is that short sleeve garments are almost always outerwear—with some exceptions (Tang mens banbi for example) they're usually meant to be worn over a long-sleeved inner layer. Ming Dynasty half-sleeves tend to be closer to 3/4 sleeves, some reaching almost to the wrist, but because long-sleeved Ming Dynasty garments often extend past the fingertips by a significant amount, you still get a decent amount of layering.
Half-sleeves may or may not have a 接袖/jie1 xiu4/sleeve connection piece; the sleeve may just extend out from the main body piece if the fabric width allows for it. They may be curved or linear, slightly flared (as with garments worn over pipa sleeves for example) or straight across.
無袖 / WU4 XIU4 / SLEEVELESS
Why stop at reducing sleeve length—get rid of them completely! Almost every dynasty has their own vest-like garment, whether it's the Ming Dynasty's 比甲/bi2 jia3, the Song Dynasty's 背心/bei4 xin1, or the Tang Dynasty's 唐褙子/tang2 bei4 zi0. Some may have a very small sleeve connection piece to extend the shoulder line outwards. Having a curved arm opening with a narrow shoulder width is very uncommon before the Qing Dynasty but not completely unheard of.
Note: Sleeve Construction
Just so you can see how these pieces actually look in the context of hanfu construction: this is fairly similar to how modern sleeves are made. The sleeve piece is just a mirrored double of how the sleeve looks from the front, you cut the whole thing out, drape it over the shoulder and then sew the bottom together.
Ok I procrastinated on this post for weeks but it is finally done!!! There are definitely some sleeve shapes that I didn't list out here, but most other shapes can be described as variations on the most common ones. Shoot me an ask if there's a sleeve shape that you really want to know about and I'll add it, or if you're having trouble identifying one :)
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Now that you know about the names of different garments, what about the parts of each garment? There are so many confusing terms!!! I gotchu :>
When looking at hanfu and parts of hanfu, it can help to see how the garment is constructed. To do that, we have to look at the pattern of the garment. Sewing patterns are the templates that tell sewists how to cut their fabric into the shapes that are needed to make their clothes. Hanfu sewing patterns are fairly standard. They look roughly like this.
(blue = shoulder fold line // red = center front // green = center back)
To help you understand how this all comes together, when defining different parts of hanfu anatomy, I'll show it on the sketch above, and also on photos of people wearing hanfu, highlighted in green.
身/SHEN1/BODY
This refers to the body of the garment—the part that would cover your torso. Typically there are two pieces of cloth making up the body: one on the left and one on the right.
Once again, one of hanfu’s main defining characteristics is that traditionally, THE SAME PIECE OF FABRIC MAKES UP THE FRONT AND THE BACK. There is no shoulder seam separating the front and back of the garment.
袖/XIU4/SLEEVE
袖 means sleeve (in both technical and colloquial terms). There are many shapes that the sleeve can take: they can be narrow like normal clothing or they can be big and dramatic like the kind you see in cdramas. Like the body, there is no seam separating the front and back of the sleeve—the sleeve piece is draped over the arm and sewn together at the bottom. Another important characteristic is that the sleeves are joined to the body at the bicep or elbow area, NOT at the shoulder. (Short or half-sleeve tops might not have a separate sleeve piece.)
領/领/LING3/COLLAR
領 means collar (in both technical and colloquial terms). This can refer to two things: one, the general shape of the neck area (round, square, standing, cross etc.) and the actual strip of fabric that is attached at the neck to form the collar.
襟/JIN1/LAPEL
This can be translated as collar or lapel; I choose to say lapel to distinguish it from 領. This refers to the area where an open-front top would open. It’ll look different based on the collar type—generally a 對襟/对襟/dui4 jin1/parallel collar top’s jin coincides with the front centerline.
With a 交領/交领/jiao1 ling3/cross-collar top, however, it would coincide with the outer edge of the collar. (Will have a more detailed post about this later.)
下擺/下摆/XIA4 BAI3/HEMLINE
Refers to the bottom hem of the garment. 下 means down/bottom. Note that 擺 can refer to different things in different contexts. If you see someone talk about the 下擺 of a top, they’re talking about this bit.
The following terms only apply to a subsection of hanfu tops and may have fewer images as a result.
衽/REN4/LAPEL EXTENSION
This one is a little harder to translate. Applies to non-parallel lapel tops like cross collar, diagonal-lapel standing collar, and overlapping round collar garments. It’s an extension of the BODY piece on the front, sewn to the vertical center front seam, that overlaps over the other side. (Will have a more detailed post about this later.)
衩/CHA4/VENT
Also called vents or slits—an optional open slit, usually made on each side of a longer shirt or robe, to allow for ease of movement. Might be combined with the word 開/开/kai1/open to form the phrase 開衩/开衩/kai1 cha4/open slit. Mostly applies to longer robes or tops, where the length reaches the knee, so that you don’t have issues with walking.
襴/LAN2/WAIST EXTENSION
Also a little harder to translate. This only applies to 襦/ru2/Ru tops and 襴衫/襕衫/lan2 shan1/Lanshan robes, plus some varieties that were derived off of those two. The 襴/襕/lan2 is an extra rectangle of fabric appended to the bottom of a shirt/top to extend its length. It can be made of a contrasting fabric or the same fabric, and often has pleats on the sides to allow for movement. (Will have a more detailed post about this later.)
緣/缘/YUAN2/TRIM
Refers to the trim or decorative contrasting bits on a piece of clothing. Specific location goes in front of the character. For example, 袖缘 means sleeve trim, aka the cuff. Some specific trims might have their own special names but that’s for another post.
Thanks for the love on the last post, I’ve been motivated to continue writing LOL Anyway: Construction/sewing pattern/structure is very important to hanfu!
There are a few important structure conventions when it comes to hanfu—almost all traditional-cut hanfu follow these rules; you could call them the defining characteristics of hanfu. There are exceptions to every rule of course (I will go over some caveats at the end of this post), but generally if a hanfu design ignores these rules we might consider it to be ‘incorrect.'
(There will be a longer follow-up pt. 3 post to this explaining the anatomy of a hanfu top/robe, where there will be more detailed in-context illustrations and descriptions. I just figured I should list these ‘rules’ somewhere separately.)
中縫/中缝/zhong1 feng4/Center Seam
Take a look at your shirts. Is there a shoulder seam between the front of the shirt and the back of the shirt? Western clothing tends to consist of a front piece + back piece sewn together to create a space for your body to sit in:
Hanfu doesn’t work like that. Traditionally, the garment isn’t separated into a front piece and back piece: it’s separated into a right piece and left piece, which are joined together at the vertical center seam. Why? Traditional fabric has a narrower width than the standard ~145cm that we have today, so a long, narrow piece is less wasteful to cut out from a bolt of silk than a wide one.
Therefore there is always a center seam, one running vertically down the front and one down the back. 中 = center, 縫 = seam, so 中縫 means center seam. There’ll be a front center seam （前中縫） and a back center seam （後中縫）.
不破肩/不破肩/bu2 po4 jian1/No Broken Shoulder
Kind of an addendum onto the previous point? Additionally since the body pieces are separated into left/right rather front/back, there’s no seam at the top of the shoulder here. The fabric is simply draped over the arm/shoulder to hang down, covering the torso on both sides.*
*Caveat: Some modified hanfu that vendors sell today will have a shoulder seam, especially thicker winter garments or short-sleeved garments. This is a design choice made to prevent the fabric from looking too stiff, known as 破肩/破肩/po4 jian1，literally “broken shoulder.” It can look great, lots of hanfu makers do it! But just to be clear, that is a MODIFICATION.
接袖/接袖/jie1 xiu4/Sleeve Connection
Western clothing patterns tend to have something where the fabric of the sleeve gets connected to the fabric of the garment’s body at the shoulder/armpit, often with a concave arm hole shape to help with the contours of the garment when it’s worn.
Hanfu sleeves, on the other hand, are never connected at the armpit—they are connected halfway down the arm. In other words, the piece of fabric that forms the body extends to also cover the upper arm part of the sleeve. The actual sleeve piece is connected to the body at the bicep/elbow area via a flat seam. (In the case of half- or no- sleeve garments there might just not be a separate sleeve piece.)
右衽/右衽/you4 ren4/"Right Over Left" Rule
Applies to cross-collar, some varieties of round collar, and some varieties of standing collar tops. In the case that the front of the garment crosses over itself, the flap coming from the wearer’s left goes OVER the flap coming from the wearer’s right. Easiest way to make sense of this is, if you’re looking at someone wearing a cross-collar hanfu top, the cross will look like a lowercase y.
Caveats
NO RULE EXISTS WITHOUT EXCEPTION!!! These rules exist because a majority of hanfu follow them and they are a standard that people agree on right now. However, there are ALWAYS cases—historically or otherwise—where these rules may be broken. For example, there are several Ming Dynasty cross collar robes that happen to be left over right, and the location of the sleeve seam can differ based on what garment you're looking at.
Also, many modern hanfu manufacturers will deliberately choose to break these 'rules' in favor of aesthetics. This is a purposeful design choice—not one that's done out of ignorance or disrespect. It's easy for common modifications to get mistaken for 'historically accurate.' To be clear, it is 100% okay and super common for modifications to exist! Just don't go around claiming that it was historically that way.
My advice is that if you're starting out with hanfu, try to stick to these rules in the back of your head as closely as possible. Once you've built your foundational knowledge, then you can start exploring the exceptions to the rules. These rules may not be foolproof, but they are a useful tool to help you understand the commonalities and trends within hanfu without overwhelming you.
Last note: it is generally more of a taboo for seams that should exist to not exist in a piece of clothing (i.e. no center back seam) than for extra seams to exist. If you go look in museums for the artifacts that hanfu is based off of, you'll notice that a lot of them—especially the ones from earlier dynasties—are a chaotic patchwork of a bunch of random piece of fabric sewn together to create the garment. Fabric is expensive, people don't want to waste it! So it's not all that weird to have seams in random places.
Attempting to sort of reboot the hanfu in components thing I wrote for Newhanfu a while back in a better organized way, so I guess this is a series? Purpose is to provide a more systematic way for people to learn about hanfu terminology, which is extremely complicated and constantly changing, but has mostly settled into some agreed upon definitions among the hanfu community.
Note: This is probably going to make the most sense for people who have already been interested in hanfu for a little while but don't know the technical terms for what they're seeing in the pretty pictures. If you're just starting out this might be a little overwhelming, especially since hanfu vernacular has variations based on what time period you're talking about and stuff like that! But of course feel free to look at it anyway :>
Here are terms that you'll see a lot when referring to a general type of garment. These are the equivalents to 'shirt,' 'skirt,' 'pants' etc. in English, where it's telling you broadly what kind of a garment it is, but not really any details about its style or what it might look like. I will structure my definition headers as (traditional character)/(simplified character)/(pinyin)(tone) going forward. Also using images from Cloud9 as much as I can bc I don't wanna deal with citing image sources lol, shoutout to our models
WORDS ACTUALLY JUST MEANING "CLOTHING"
衣/衣/yi1 - General term for clothing. More often than not refers to a top/shirt or a robe, but can refer to clothing in general as well, especially in modern usage. The yi radical looks like this: "衤" Basically if a character has that symbol on the left, it’s probably related to clothing in some way.
服/服/fu2 - Also a general term for clothing. Slightly more formal/technical in tone imo. Usually combined with 衣 for 衣服 (more casual everyday way of saying clothing) or with 裝 for 服裝 (more formal way of saying clothing). Think the difference in tone between ‘clothes’ vs. ‘attire.’
TOPS (the clothing kind) & ROBES
衫/衫/shan1 - Shirt, unlined. Refers to a shirt/blouse in modern usage. Within hanfu, refers to a top (usually short, but sometimes long) that is unlined.
襖/袄/ao3 - Jacket/lined top. Refers to a parka-style jacket in modern usage (棉襖）. Within hanfu, refers to a top that is lined, typically on the thicker side. Can be long or short. More often than not it is worn as an outer layer.
袍/袍/pao2 - Robe. Refers to a top whose length extends past the knee. Usually robes are lined, but that’s not a requirement to be considered a robe. There is overlap with 衫/襖; aka a garment can be both a 袍 and a 衫 (long unlined robe) or a 袍 and an 襖 (lined robe), but not an 襖 and a 衫 (somehow lined and unlined at the same time, disobeys the laws of physics and logic, possibly quantum entity).
深衣/深衣/shen1 yi1 - Literally ’deep clothing,’ also can be translated as robe, but more specific in that shenyi will typically be made up of a ‘top part’ and a ‘skirt part’ that are sewn together at the waist, rather than just being a really long top.
褙子/褙子/bei4 zi0 - Outer layer. Harder to define because it can refer to very different things depending on what dynasty you’re looking at. General rule though, it’s almost always an outer layer on a woman’s outfit.
BOTTOMS (the clothing kind)
裙/裙/qun2 - Skirt. Generally any garment that wraps around a person’s torso and covers the legs.
褲/裤/ku4 - Pants/trousers. Similar to skirt except there are dedicated channels for each leg, aka there’s some separation happening at the crotch. Can be open or closed crotch, almost always worn under a skirt or robe.
Obviously there's a lot of other terms too but I'll get to them with time! Still a full time student, still learning about hanfu, blah blah blah. But yeah especially the more specific terms I will probably cover in a later post. Hope this is interesting enough for now :>
More anatomy terminology things as promised :0000 There are lots of different kinds of skirts and pants, but in general they all wrap around your waist or chest and are secured by some kind of tie. They're usually much simpler than the tops.
裙頭/裙头/QUN2 TOU2/SKIRT HEAD
Same thing as waistband, applies to pants and skirt. We call it a “head” because it’s at the top of the garment and the body of it follows. This can vary in width depending on whether you’re looking at a standard waist-high skirt or a 訶子裙/诃子裙/he1 zi0 qun2/Hezi style skirt-dress, which has a very wide skirt head that looks more like the bodice of a strapless dress.
The horizontal length is usually made to be approximately 1.5x the waist measurement of the wearer to allow for ample overlap when wrapped around the waist. Might be called 褲頭/裤头/ku4 tou2/pants head for pants or 腰頭/腰头/yao1 tou2/waist head in general.
繫帶/系带/XI4 DAI4/RIBBON
Usually translated as a ribbon or tie, two long ribbons each attached on one end of the skirt head so that you can secure the garment around your body. Some styles will also have one long ribbon come separately from the skirt itself and instead attach loops on either side of the skirt head that the ribbon goes through, but this style is less common nowadays. Some styles will also have four small ties rather than two large ones.
孔/KONG3/HOLE
A slot made in the skirt head to pass the tie/ribbon that’s stuck on the inside through to the outside. This is a modification from the traditional cut of hanfu, but it has become so ubiquitous that it’s practically the standard now.
肩带/JIAN1 DAI4/SHOULDER STRAPS
Applies to 齊胸/齐胸/qi2 xiong1/chest-high skirts. Shoulder straps can be sewn on or removable and attached via a hook and loop.
擺/摆/BAI3/‘SWING’
Can refer to different things based on context. 下擺 Refers to the bottom hemline of the garment, with 下 meaning down/bottom. 擺 alone literally means ‘swing’ or ‘swish.’ When used alone or combined with 裙 for 裙擺, it’s referring to how much fabric has been used in the body of the skirt, measured by the stretched-out unpleated total length of the hemline. The lightest skirts have a 3-meter bai, with 4.5m and 6m also being standard.
褶/ZHE2,3/PLEAT
Fold or pleat. Almost all hanfu skirts have either 順褶/顺褶/shun4 zhe2,3/knife pleats or 工字褶/gong1 zi4 zhe2,3/box pleats. Sometimes also written as 折, which is pronounced the same way meaning 'fold,' but usually this refers to a crease in paper or the action of folding something rather than a pleat. Pronunciation caveat: zhe2 is standard in Taiwan, zhe3 is standard in China.
裙門/裙门/QUN2 MEN2/SKIRT DOOR
Applies to Ming Dynasty 馬面裙/马面裙/ma3 mian4 qun2/horse-faced skirt. Smooth unpleated face of a skirt. Similar to the 光面 of Song Dynasty baidiequn.
光面/GUANG1 MIAN4/EMPTY FACE
Applies to Song Dynasty 百迭裙/bai3 die2 qun2/hundred-layer skirt. Smooth unpleated face of a skirt. Apologies for the bad picture, this one is made of linen and the boundaries between the pleats are lowkey really hard to see x-x
破/PO4/PANEL
Applies to 破裙/po4 qun2/‘broken skirt.’ 破 means broken, colloquially; when referring to the 破 of a skirt you are referring to one of the trapezoidal or rectangular panels of the skirt.
襠/裆/DANG1/CROTCH
Crotch area of pants. Pants can usually be classified as either 開襠/开裆/kai1 dang1/open-crotch or 合襠/合裆/he2 dang1/closed-crotch.
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Back to technical infodumping... Also caved and used tb images in this one LOL sources all linked of course!
I will now be going over different collar/lapel shapes often seen in hanfu! The collar and lapel are combined because they're connected ideas, so you can't really get an idea of what the front of the garment looks like unless you know both. There are so many different axes that you could use to sort these into categories (by dynasty, by collar, by lapel, by name, etc). I'm going to use the system that I think will make the most sense to people trying to get a sense of how stuff is constructed. This might differ from the system that most other informational articles use.
Terminology refresher:
領/领/ling3 - Collar (neck part)
襟/jin1 - Lapel (front of garment, where it 'opens')
I like to separate these into two broad lapel categories, which have a couple subcategories themselves. They are:
對襟/对襟/dui4 jin1/'parallel lapel'
大襟/da4 jin1/'grand lapel'
對襟 Parallel Lapel
Duijin garments usually have an open center front seam that gets secured to the opposite side with ties or buttons. The lapels are straight parallel lines. A shape may or may not be cut out at the neck.
直領/直领/zhi2 ling3/Straight Collar
月餅 / Yuebing / Mooncake by 九雲閣 Cloud9 Hanfu on Etsy (see alt text for photo credits)
This is the simplest kind of collar. There is no extra shape carved out for the neck at the top of the garment, the lapels extend straight down from the midline. The result is an open-front parallel collar cardigan, which is almost always worn on the outside. The collar piece is simply a very long strip of fabric attached to the empty edges like this. There may or may not be a small gap at the back of the neck to allow space for the width of the neck.
寒翠 / Hancui / Evergreen by 九雲閣 Cloud9 Hanfu on Etsy
There are a few variations to the collar piece. The simplest one shown is called 通領/通领/tong1 ling3/Through Collar, where it’s just one strip of fabric all the way around. If a garment is referred to as just 對襟 with no extra indicated collar shape, this is the collar type that it's referring to.
萦波 from 裳裳者华 on Taobao
折領/折领/zhe2 ling3/Folded Collar, primarily a Song dynasty thing, has the top half or so double-folded inwards to create a more reinforced neck area.
Custom order by 九雲閣 Cloud9 Hanfu on Etsy
合領/合领/he2 ling3/Joined Collar, a Ming dynasty structure, has a thicker collar piece that only runs halfway down the length of the garment, and usually has no gap on the back of the neck.
圓領/圆领/yuan2 ling3/Round Collar
金通缠枝莲 from 松塔汉服 on Taobao
Round collars are fairly similar to modern-day round collars, except they are typically wider and lower than a tshirt. A large half-circle is cut out at the neck. The collar piece has two variations: the thicker full collar piece, which has more of a presence and the narrower 無領/无领/wu2 ling3/Missing Collar variation, which just encloses the circle’s edges with ~1cm of bias tape.
山染黛 / Shanrandai / Sierra by 九雲閣 Cloud9 Hanfu on Etsy
Both of these almost exclusively apply to Ming Dynasty wear.
方領/方领/fang1 ling3/Square Collar
迎春 / Yingchun / Salutation by 九雲閣 Cloud9 Hanfu on Etsy (see alt text for photo credits)
Square collars are usually more of a rectangular or trapezoidal shape. Almost exclusively applies to Ming Dynasty outerwear.
坦領/坦领/tan3 ling3/Open Collar
落夢 / Luomeng / Daydream by 九雲閣 Cloud9 Hanfu on Etsy (see alt text for photo credits)
Also called the U-領. A wide scooping neckline in a U-shape often found in Tang Dynasty womenswear.
立領 /立领/li4 ling3/Standing Collar
雲化龍 / Yunhualong / Seraphine by 九雲閣 Cloud9 Hanfu on Etsy (see alt text for photo credits)
Synonymous with 豎領/竖领/shu4 ling3. Standing collar, a long collar piece that wraps around the neck, usually secured in the front with ties or small buttons.
雞心領/鸡心领/ji1 xin1 ling3/Heart Neckline
升天行 / Shengtianxing / Hesperus by 九雲閣 Cloud9 Hanfu on Etsy
Reverse heart-shaped neckline, can be considered a variant of the 坦領 where the center of the collar protrudes upwards to a point. Also Tang Dynasty womenswear.
Y領/Y领/Y ling3/Y-Collar
立春遊 / Lichunyou / Spring Thaw by 九雲閣 Cloud9 Hanfu on Etsy (see alt text for photo credits)
Can be considered a variant of the 直領 or its own thing. Y-shaped neckline with a triangle cut out at the top, meeting halfway down. Also Tang Dynasty womenswear.
大襟/da4 jin1/Grand Lapel
Also referred to as 交襟/jiao1 jin1/Crossed Lapel, grand lapel-type collars usually have a 衽 piece attached to the center front seam to span the whole width of the torso, overlapping in the front. This is a term that's usually used for Ming Dynasty clothing, for which there is a 大襟 and 對襟 version of each of 直領，立領，and 圓領.
交領/交领/jiao1 ling3/Cross Collar
曉風青 / Xiaofengqing / Cardinal by 九雲閣 Cloud9 Hanfu on Etsy (see alt text for photo credits)
Cross-collar, one of the most iconic features of East Asian clothing. There are a ton of ways that the cross-collar can be constructed, varying across time.
月將沉 / Yuejiangchen / Moonset by 九雲閣 Cloud9 Hanfu on Etsy
The classic symmetrical 交領 from the earliest dynasties can be understood as a Y-shaped cutout with a triangular or trapezoidal 衽 sewn onto each center front seam to bridge the distance. Some also do away with the center front seam (but never the center back) and make the torso and the 衽 one piece together. The amount of overlap can vary.
横卧交领长袖短衫 from 淮边筱竹 on Taobao
Cross collars can also be asymmetrical, especially in the Ming Dynasty: the 直領大襟 example can be understood as a straight collar on the wearer’s right and a cross collar on the wearer’s left. There may only be a 衽 attached to the outside flap crossing over (coming from the wearer’s left), while the flap coming from the wearer’s right hangs straight down.
*In cases like these—and this is a VERY common mistake even for experienced Hanfu wearers—the ties cannot be knotted at their base. Instead the straight collar should be matched with the centerline of your own chest, and knotted a little further down the tie. Can be inner or outer wear in a variety of dynasties.
垂領/垂领/chui2 ling3/Dropped Collar
灵华 from 墨名堂 on Taobao
Literally ‘dropped neck,’ can be understood as a round collar that has ’sagged’ down in shape. The neck shape is a deep scoop shape, overlapping only slightly, usually secured with buttons. Almost exclusively seen in Tang Dynasty womenswear.
圓領/圆领/yuan2 ling3/Round Collar
The 大襟 round collar’s 衽 is usually more trapezoidal or rectangular in shape, as it extends all the way up to the neck. There are several varieties of round collar.
鳴澗 / Mingjian / Cascade by 九雲閣 Cloud9 Hanfu on Etsy (see alt text for photo credits)
The earliest forms of round collar found in Tang and before are the standing round collar, where the collar piece is a long strip of fabric sewn ‘standing up’ to the neck, resulting in a small protruding collar line. Robes with this kind of collar usually have symmetrical construction, with identical trapezoidal 衽 on the inside.
海誓 / Haishi / Pelagos by 九雲閣 Cloud9 Hanfu on Etsy
Later forms of round collar, mostly in the Song and Ming dynasties, have the collar piece on the same plane as the rest of the robe. This is sometimes called 盤領/盘领/pan2 ling3/Dish Collar. The collar piece can either be cut out in a round shape (modern method) or cut out as a strip of fabric and gathered into that shape by pulling a thread through like a drawstring (traditional method).
Custom order by 九雲閣 Cloud9 Hanfu on Etsy
Typically the flat round collar piece is wider. Flat round collars also might be more likely to be asymmetrical: the outside is the mostly the same shape as the standing round collar’s 衽，but the inside can look similar to a cross-collar or straight collar 衽，since it gets hidden on the inside. Usually outerwear.
立領/立领/li4 ling3/Standing Collar
木有枝 from 空青汉服 on Taobao
This is the 大襟 cousin of the 立領對襟，also known as 竪領. The collar piece is the same, but there is a large trapezoidal 衽 attached on each side of the front center seam. This results in a diagonal lapel line running from the center of the neck down to the side, so it can also be called 立领斜襟/li4 ling3 xie2 jin4/Standing Collar Diagonal Lapel. Usually Ming Dynasty outerwear.
曲領/曲领/qv1 ling3/Curved Collar
風流 /Fengliu/Zephyr by 九雲閣 Cloud9 Hanfu on Etsy (see alt text for photo credits)
Very old seldom-seen collar shape from Han to Wei/Jin Dynasty inner wear. Very similar to the cross-collar shape, but the outside flap comes up to wrap around the neck like a turtleneck.
💃: Mouse (ig @/dancer_mouse)
📸: 齊玉 (ig @/chiyu1024)
🪮: me
💄: 秋眸 (ig @/yingying890813)
👗: Cloud9 Hanfu (ig @/cloud9hanfu)
Etsy link to listing page
General Inspiration
Disclaimer: I’m not really a pottery person; my knowledge of ceramics basically starts and ends at stress-strain curves, so there’s a good chance I’ll get some things wrong here! If you see a mistake pls let me know and I’ll correct it to the best of my ability.
三彩 literally means "three colors," the most common of which are green, brown/yellow, and white/cream (really uncolored glaze, the base is just off-white so it shows up as off-white). However, Sancai wares are not actually limited to this triumvirate—common extras include blue, red, and black (though black was not really considered a color).
One thing to make clear about Sancai is that it's a style of ceramic art that was employed across several commercial kilns across China. Lots of different shades of colors made of different colorants existed; that's why the green in one piece may be very bright and grass-like while another piece might be closer to turquoise.
Src: Fig 1 of geographical distribution of three main Tang Sancai kilns, J.F. Cui et al., Lead Isotope Analysis of Tang Sancai Pottery Glazes from Gongyi Kiln, Henan Province and Huangbao Kiln, Shaanxi province, pg 598
From chemical analysis, we know that Sancai glazes do tend to share some similarities. Common characteristics of Sancai glaze are that they are lead-based, twice-fired at relatively low temperatures (700-1000C), and very viscous. A number of elements are used as colorants, the most common of which are iron (Fe), copper (Cu), and cobalt (Co), which could be obtained from minerals. When oxidized they turn amber, green, and blue respectively (think of rust and old copper like the statue of liberty). Other elements like antimony and manganese could also be used to make brighter yellow or even purple shade.
Different people used different methods of producing similar colors, though, so there was not necessarily a 'standard' recipe for each color or anything like that. Still, I think the most commonly known mainstream shades are this bright grass green, this amber color, and an off-white base clay color.
Src: 唐三彩仕女陶俑 A Blue and Amber-Glazed Pottery Figure of a Court Lady Tang Dynasty, Lot 249, Sotheby's
Jiang Qiqi's thesis on Tang Sancai puts particular emphasis on the possibly foreign-introduced use of cobalt colorant as a vital step forward in ceramic technology, and an important factor in the development of Tang Sancai as a style. It allowed for the use of blue tones that were previously not possible, broadening the spectrum of colors that artists had access to in this medium, washing the Tang Dynasty in color. To me it's a splendid example of how the Tang Dynasty exchanged ideas with foreign cultures, then innovated new concepts and technologies from what they learned.
Since the main three colors are well-represented in the other two sets in the Sancai line, I wanted to have at least one set featuring a slightly less-common shade variety of one of the three main Sancai colors. I decided on green, which sometimes occurs in this pale, almost teal-leaning tint. This is described in Chen Siya's thesis as "opal green" (however a lot of the color names are listed in Japanese which I don't speak so it's possible I missed one that's closer to the teal-ish shade).
Src: Table 4.3, Glazed colors of utensils in the Ye City area, Chen Siya, Production, Circulation and Consumption of Lead-glazed Pottery, From Latter Northern Dynasties to Tang Dynasty, pg 198
I'm not sure if cobalt was necessarily used in this to make it bluer, because pigments + chemical reactions + firing process do not mix like paint does, but it does have a blue hue to it that kind of ties it back to the whole cobalt colorant thing.
Drip-Glaze Effect
When I first decided on the Tang Sancai theme, I started Pinterest-ing pictures of Sancai ceramics just to get a feel for the possibilities. I didn't want to just recreate the outfit of a sancai figurine—not that there's anything bad about that; lots of hanfu shops do reconstruction designs, I just wanted to maintain some personal creativity here, being focused on design and all, especially since the other two sets in the Sancai line already take fairly heavy inspiration from figurines.
Turning away from figurines, we can take a look at household wares, or what might be called "utensils," especially vessels like pots and vases. I primarily referred to Chen Siya's Kanazawa University doctoral thesis, "Production, Circulation and Consumption of Lead-glazed Pottery, From Latter Northern Dynasties to Tang Dynasty" for analysis of glazing techniques. Utensils and figurines share many glazing techniques, but there are some methods that may be more common in one category than the other.
Src: Pinterest link, previously linked to Christie's but unfortunately the listing page is no longer available (it was available when I first came across it but I didn't save it so I don't have any metadata on it anymore)
There are a lot of Sotheby’s/Christie's and similar antique auction photos on Pinterest. I was particularly drawn to this kind of glaze that appeared mostly on large round vessels like vases and pots, where it looks like the surface was colored white first, and then poured over with colorful glaze so that the colors ‘melted’ down over the white, forming this really beautiful abstract pattern. (I hypothesize that the glaze was poured because of Jiang Qiqi's thesis which states that "Pouring, dripping, filling and brushing were the methods of applying the glazes. Pouring is the main process for the glazing operation" (Jiang 212), but it seems like dripping could also apply here.) Anyway, the one I focused on for inspiration is this three-footed pot (三足瓮 / san1 zu2 weng1) from Christie's.
L: Figure 4.17, Examples of decorative positions // R: Table 4.5, Classification of decorative positions // both Chen Siya, Production, Circulation and Consumption of Lead-glazed Pottery, From Latter Northern Dynasties to Tang Dynasty, pg 201-202
Chen Siya's paper classifies the positioning/location of glazed parts of ceramic utensils into 7 types (pg 201-204). It seems like this placement would count as the exterior wall being fully glazed "except bottom," since in Figure 4.17 the example for type 4 also has a significant stretch of the bottom unglazed, which would fall into types 2, 4, or 7.
Src: A Blue, Amber And Straw-Glazed Pottery Tripod Censer, Tang Dynasty, Lot 255, Christie's
The inner wall of this pot is not visible in the photo, but other similarly formed Sancai pots from Christie's show at least some coloration on the inside of the lip (as in the one shown above), so I think it's likely that this pot is either type 2 or 4. From there, Table 4.5 lists "sanzufu" (I believe this is a mistranslation of 三足瓮, which would be sanzuweng, because there is a character pronounced fu that looks very similar to weng; there are a lot of typos in this paper so a mistranslation is likely) in types 4 and 5, making the only overlapping one type 4 in the 7th century. From this I deduced that it was possible that this vessel may have been made in the Early Tang Dynasty.
Design Breakdown
The Pegasus / 天馬行空 is a 5-piece set based on feminine silhouettes from the 7th century during the Tang Dynasty. The five pieces included are:
First, to create a good ‘layering’ effect, I needed to have enough surface area to work with, which is why I chose to make the skirt in this set a chest-high skirt. It's an iconic silhouette of the Tang Dynasty and gives me more visual space to build on top of.
The fabric I chose for this is an off-white 100% linen with very subtle organic striations. The white color in Tang Sancai is not actually white; it’s a colorless glaze that gets applied over the clay base, which is itself an off-white color. As a result, you can see that the natural texture and impurity in the clay base sometimes shows through, so I wanted the fabric to reflect that a little bit.
Poqun have the advantage of not having pleats, meaning that they can be made from natural fiber without needing to re-press the pleats every time you wash it (which is the main reason why many pleated hanfu skirts use polyester).
There are also shoulder straps, because ain’t nobody got time to be hiking up their skirts around their torsos every five seconds.
2 陌腹 / mo4 fu4 / Short Overskirt
Also called the 腰裙 / yao1 qun2 / "waist skirt," the mofu is a layering accessory that appeared to be most popular during the early Tang Dynasty. This is a slightly less common/well-established hanfu piece, so some research had to be done to stay defensibly authentic.
Research
The most popular depictions of the mofu come from frescoes on the walls of the 新城公主 / xin1 cheng2 gong1 zhu3 / Princess Xincheng's tomb and 燕德妃 / yan4 de2 fei1 / Concubine Yan's tomb.
L: 新城公主墓侍女壁畫, mural of ladies-in-waiting from the tomb of Princess Xincheng, discovered 1995 // R: 后墓室东壁南侧伎乐图, 唐高宗咸亨二年（671）, 燕德妃墓后墓室东壁南侧, 唐代壁畫珍品數據庫, mural of female entertainers from the southern face of the eastern wall of Concubine Yan's tomb, 671CE, Tang Dynasty Mural Database
Structurally, they appear to be basically the same as a shortened poqun (although we can’t be 100% certain of that because we haven’t found a surviving artifact of the actual thing yet). We know they're tied around the bust because there are ribbons visible holding them there in the paintings, and we know that some (but not all) of them have a contrasting border trim, and that many are striped similarly to the full poqun skirts.
Liu Kaixuan et al.'s paper "Archaeology and Restoration of Costumes in Tang Tomb Murals Based on Reverse Engineering and Human-Computer Interaction Technology" digitally models the outfit of the second lady from the left in the mural from Princess Xincheng's tomb. Their model of the the striped poqun is in line with what we know—alternating trapezoidal pieces of fabric sewn together—but the mofu they constructed was flat and rectangular.
Src: Figure 1, 3D interactive pattern-making for Tang Dynasty tomb costumes, Liu Kaixuan et al., Archaeology and Restoration of Costumes in Tang Tomb Murals Based on Reverse Engineering and Human-Computer Interaction Technology, Sustainability
This is definitely not impossible, but I have more reasons to believe that the mofu may have been similarly patterned tot he full-length poqun skirt. Although the mofu of the lady in question is a solid color, you can see that the other women around her are wearing mofu that are striped similarly to their skirts. This can be achieved by simply using a striped fabric, but if the assumption is that the striped poqun is color blocked, why not the mofu? We know that non-striped poqun are still blocked out in the same way even when all the trapezoids are the same color, and we see the woman on the far left wearing a solid-color poqun as well.
Also, taking a look at the mural from the tomb of Concubine Yan, the second woman from the right appears to also be wearing a single-color red mofu; however, there are clearly many defined lines running down its length, leading me to believe these may be seam lines. The mofu also all seem to be relatively loose and free-flowing at the hemline, which to me suggests that they may be wider at the hem than at the bust, which is one of the defining characteristics of the poqun construction.
Design
This was probably the most fun part of designing this set, as well as the most frustrating. I wanted the mofu to ‘drip’ down the skirt like the colored glaze. I really liked the uneven edges that were formed by the dripping glaze on these vases. I wanted to apply that to the hem of the mofu to get that three-dimensional layering effect.
The trouble with this is that organic curves, especially the concave kinds formed in between the glaze drips, are really really annoying to hem. We work with a number of hanfu workshops across China, and many of them are very small 1-3 person side-gig businesses that specialize in hanfu; they don’t have the power of a whole factory line behind them. A big part of my back-end job is also to communicate exactly what I need the design to look like to the people cutting & sewing it, and if you think about it, it would be an absolute nightmare to try to get the shape exactly right every time, plus ask them to hem it.
My solution has to do with modern technology: laser cutting! I do a lot of laser cutting for rapid prototyping purposes, but laser cutters are a very versatile tool and can be applied in a variety of situations. The key advantage of laser cutting fabric, especially polyester as in this case, is that because the cutting is done by heat/light, the edges are automatically burned/melted shut, so the fabric won’t fray even if you don’t hem it.
Digital pattern pieces and sewn photo (sorry about the annoying watermark but people have stolen my art before and im not taking any chances x-x)
I’m sure there are craft people and cosplay people around here somewhere who’ve done similar things with polyester fabric or rope—you can seal the edges by holding a lighter up to the edge and letting the fibers melt, gluing themselves to each other. Using laser cutting also gives me more control over exactly how I want each piece to look, since the laser follows a specific modeled path over the print, which I can just CAD and then send over digitally.
Even though there are creative modifications and modern technology at play, the skirt still retains the traditional cut of the broken skirt: right-trapezoid skirt pieces seamed together leg-to-leg.
Printed + laser cut pieces, construction doodles on graph paper
Typically, because of the difference in length between the two legs of a right trapezoid, there’s a little piece that ends up poking out at each seam, which you trim off before you hem the whole skirt. To avoid needing to cut the fabric with scissors, which would require hemming, I designed the bottom of each trapezoid to match up at the edges, so that the organic shape of the skirt takes care of that problem beforehand. There are two different variations of the shape, which match up with each other on either side, meant to be seamed together in an alternating ABABAB pattern. When put side by side, they look something like this:
The other important part of this design that I have yet to talk about is the fabric pattern. I knew I wanted it to have mixed-color sancai patterns, to mimic the glaze, so I started putting some colors down and blending them out. Unfortunately, my first attempt mostly referenced the colors in these figurines, and kind of looked like vomit.
The original idea + how it actually turned out. This was. Not... a look.
So that got scrapped.
That's when I found the sanzuweng I mentioned at the beginning of this post. I had scheduled three sets to be in the Tang Sancai collection, so I figured that I should depict a range of possible colors to demonstrate the possibilities.
So I tried again, this time with teal and a burnt golden color. It’s really really hard to get a realistic ‘melting’ pattern when drawing digitally by hand—even if you have a reference, it’s hard for a digital program to mix colors in the way that melted pigment suspended in liquid mixes; the math just isn’t really the same, and again it ends up coming out looking kind of like vomit most of the time.
Instead, I went for a more geometric design that I found on that Sancai pot. It still has the melty elements that I wanted, but it’s limited to the edges instead of dripping all over like the other examples. I put the teal-green down first, carved out the white diamond resist parts, and then used the airbrush tool to add the golden color to the top/bottom, resulting in a really interesting burned-edge look. I really like how it turned out—the darker hemline emphasizes the laser-cut curve against the white background.
3 披帛 / pi1 bo2 / Shawl
The pibo shawl matches the mofu; it’s made out of the same fabric (polyester chiffon) and also laser-cut so that the two ends have drippy shapes as well. It’s not a completely even gradient; I wanted the color blending to look organic, so I used the airbrush tool on the ends to keep it natural.
The laser cutter bed was only 200cm wide, and the pibo was supposed to be 300cm long, so the pibo had to be cut in two 150cm long pieces, then seamed together in the middle.
This is not out of the ordinary even for traditionally cut pibo; you can cut 1m of fabric in half and then recombine each half to turn it into a ~300cmx50cm pibo if you’re okay with having a seam in the middle, but if you don’t want a seam you have to use 3m of fabric and waste 2/3 of it. This is fine if you’re making a bunch of pibo at once, but less ideal if you’re just making one.
I don't have a ton to say on this shirt design-wise, it's a fairly simple parallel-collar shirt with long straight sleeves. The sleeve cuffs have a 聯珠紋 / lian2 zhu1 wen2 / linked-bead pattern print I illustrated based on winged horse medallions from the Tang Dynasty, but it's really just for color matching purposes here; that fabric was primarily created for the 身騎白馬 / shen1 qi2 bai2 ma3 / Chrysaor set (which is the next design background post coming up) so I'll explain that one there.
The fabric used for the main body of the shirt is a very light and silky cotton mix (60% polyester 40% cotton). It's meant to mimic the look of 香雲紗 / xiang1 yun2 sha1 / Gambiered silk, also known as tea silk or Guangdong silk, a type of silk with an extremely complicated dyeing process that originated in Guangdong. The production of xiangyunsha silk involves a multi-week process using natural materials such as gambier juice, river mud and soil, and the sun. It's only viable during certain seasons and produces an extremely unique double-sided fabric, black or rich brown on one side and usually patterned and jewel-toned on the other.
As a result, real xiangyunsha fabric is—unsurprisingly—incredibly expensive. Having used it in other designs and custom orders, however, I can tell you that this fabric gets remarkably close in touch. Of course there are qualities that you can only get from real silk, and the color is just a shade shy of the richness of real xiangyunsha, but it's definitely a recognizable imitation with a luxurious feel.
5 唐褙子 / tang2 bei4 zi0 / Short-Sleeved Jacket
This type of Tang beizi is often called the 武周唐褙子 / wu2 zhou1 tang2 bei4 zi0 / Wuzhou Period Tang beizi. 武周 is the name of the period of Wu Zetian's reign, the only female emperor of ancient China, who ruled from 690–705CE. This is usually considered the tail end of what's considered the early Tang Dynasty.
The main reference (left below) for this type of Tang beizi is usually cited as this tomb painting of a woman from Astana cemetery in Xinjiang from the tomb of Zhang Licheng, who died in the year 702CE, which is within the Wuzhou time period, thus the name. The collar starts out in a V-line shape before narrowing and meeting into parallel lapels further down the body.
Some Sancai figurines have more solid fabric designs on their skirts, such as this sitting figure out a woman above on the right from the Shanxi History Museum, with dozens of tiny 3D flowers or designs that appear to have been added on top or other times impressed into the main clay body.
I thought that was aptly represented by using a two-toned jacquard where the pattern is woven in, so that there's a texture change as well as a shade change between the design and background. The color of the fabric was also very similar to the shade of green most commonly seen in Sancai. This fabric is 40% viscose and 60% polyester, medium weight, giving it a certain durability along with a subtle sheen across its surface. Because of its weave, the inside is a mirror of the outside pattern.
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Okay I'm out of images so I guess I'm done lol I even cheated by combining instances of two images next to each other into one screenshot
Working on the 身騎白馬 Chrysaor post and adding all the sources into the Sancai works cited sheet (there's a couple in there right now but must of them are still open on my browser im working on it) (there are. so many tabs open on my computer rn), happy new year everyone!!!
ngl I don't really know how to title this one so I just called it body elements, which is kind of clunky but the best I can come up with right now. This is gonna be on the shorter side; I want to go over some of the more unique features you might find on the main body (身/shen1) of a hanfu top. Many of them are very specific to a certain dynasty or time period.
腰襴/yao1 lan2/Waist 'Lan'
Extremely overused pic of the Yuejiangchen ru, with lan highlighted in green
A 'lan' on a top or robe refers to a rectangular piece of fabric attached to the bottom of a garment to extend its length. They can be of the same fabric as the rest of the garment, or a contrasting color. You can identify them by a horizontal seam running across the waist-ish area of an upper body garment—that’s the seam line where the lan connects to the shen. The action or quality of having a lan connected to the main body is called 接襴/jie1 lan2/attached lan.
前秦紫纈襦甘肃花海毕家滩26号墓出土 Ru relic unearthed from Huahai Bijiatan in Gansu, restored by China Silk Museum
Lan typically appear in pretty specific places: one, on a 襦/ru2 top/tunic; and two, on a 襴衫/lan2 shan1/Lanshan robe. Ru tops are generally found in Wei/Jin styles (they exist in other time periods, it’s just that the way modern hanfu popularity developed led to them being sort of relegated/most commonly seen in Wei/Jin). Most are true cross-collar tops; some have a curved collar (less common). Lanshan robes mostly appear in Tang Dynasty menswear and onward; they are usually round-collared robes and the lan tends to be more trapezoidal in shape.
!注 Terminology Caveat: Majority hanfu enthusiasts agree to define 襦 as a top shorter than knee length that has a 襴, but there is some disagreement over this because 1) the meaning of the word 襦 changed over different time periods in history, and 2) the 2010’s hanfu movement, which was largely still interwoven with guzhuang and also heavily motivated by factories trying to jump on the trend for quick cash grabs, referred to any top as a ru. I personally only use the word ru when referring to a short top with a lan, but there are arguments to be made for either side, so I’ll leave that up to you—as long as we’re all capable of communicating our ideas, there’s not necessarily a right or wrong here.
斜陽 / Xieyang / Vesper by 九雲閣 Cloud9 Hanfu on Etsy (see alt text for photo credits)
Tops extended with lan typically do not have 衩/cha4, or vents/slits, at the sides. Instead, to allow more hip movement, some lan may have inverted box pleats (工字褶/gong1 zi4 zhe23) at the sides and/or center. In these cases the shape of the lan is still a long rectangle, it’s just a little longer to compensate for the extra fabric that gets folded in on itself during the pleat. Given the way that hanfu is constructed you can see how it might be difficult to add a pleat in the garment’s side without a lan—you’d have to have at least side seam in the way. Adding a lan allows you to pleat continuous fabric, and because it’s a narrow rectangle you can cut the whole thing from one piece of fabric with no connecting seams.
Left to right: 剪秋姝品 from 端正记 (Tang Dynasty 圓領襴袍/yuan2 ling3 lan2 pao2), 江城子 from 溪春堂 (Song Dynasty 襴衫/lan2 shan1), and 梅紋暗花紗明制圓領袍襴衫 from 洞庭漢風 (Ming Dynasty 襴衫）
The other place that you’d see a lan is on a 襴衫/lan2 shan1. The name is slightly misleading, because we like think of shan as ‘shirts,’ but it really just means a garment that covers the upper body, so it includes robes as well. Lanshan are usually a type of long round-collared robe, popular among scholars and literati. The Tang, Song and Ming Dynasties all have their own versions of the lanshan (one of the Song versions and the Ming version look very similar), but the Tang and Song versions have a lan extension piece attached approximately at the knee level (afaik the Ming dynasty version just kept the name from the Song dynasty). As a result lanshan tend to be closer to ankle or floor length as opposed to knee or calf length like some other round collar robes. In most cases the lan might be closer to trapezoidal than rectangular, to account for the flaring of the robe's body shape.
Left to right: 剪秋姝品 from 端正记 (Tang Dynasty 圓領襴袍/yuan2 ling3 lan2 pao2), 江城子 from 溪春堂 (Song Dynasty 襴衫/lan2 shan1), marked up to show the center front seam and lan pieces.
衽/ren4/Lapel
The ren is the part of the 身/shen1/body in 大襟/da4 jin1/Great Lapel garments that bridges each front piece’s gap between the center front seam and the other side of the garment. It typically takes the form of a triangle or a trapezoid, though it might vary a bit based on the collar variety.
Depending on time period, it's possible that one or both sides of the garment incorporates the ren directly into the body without a separate front seam. Ming Dynasty tops specifically have ren on the outer flap, but the inner flap ends at the center front seam—that's why when you put it on you can't make the knot right at the base of the ribbon, you have to let the inside part hang down loosely. (This is 100% the most common mistake I see with people wearing Ming Dynasty tops—it doesn't not fit you you're just not putting it on right!!!)
(ex: round collar, cross collar, standing collar,
擺/bai3/Side Flaps
暮春间 from 执月, Ming Dynasty mens' 圓領袍/yuan2 ling3 pao2/round-collared robe with 平擺/ping2 bai3/flat bai highlighted in green.
Kind of at a loss for how to translate this into English. Not to be confused with the bai of skirts or the 下擺 aka hemline, the bai I'm referring to here is a feature specific to Ming Dynasty menswear—I've had a client refer to them as 'hip wing,' which I think is pretty cute. They're essentially extra pieces that extend out from the side of some Ming Dynasty mens' robes.
Still 暮春间 from 执月, Ming Dynasty mens' 圓領袍/yuan2 ling3 pao2/round-collared robe with 平擺/ping2 bai3/flat bai highlighted in green.
There are a couple different kinds of bai, that have to do with their shapes and placement. Most are 外擺/wai4 bai3/outer bai, meaning that they can be seen from the outside. The top may be flat (平/ping2) or pointed (尖/jian1) in shape. The pointier ones will often extend up to the elbow or further; generally when they're worn they go behind the arms and point backwards. You'll most often find outer bai on more formal garments like 搭護/搭护/da1 hu4, 直身/zhi2 shen1, 野撒/ye3 sa4 and 圓領袍/圆领袍/yuan2 ling3 pao2.
When worn, the bai is usually folded backwards under the sleeves, so they're not actually super visible especially if the sleeves are wide. They're more visible from the back/side and when sitting down.
云意 from 执月, Ming Dynasty 道袍 Tao robe. Purposely chose a version with sheer fabric so you can see the inner rectangular bai showing through the main body.
內擺/nei4 bai3/inner bai fold inwards instead of outwards, so they're not visible from the outside, but they still have essentially the same construction, just in a different direction. Cross-collar robes with inner bai are called 道袍/dao4 pao2/Tao robes. Cross-collar robes with outer bai are called 直身/zhi2 shen1/Zhishen robes.
Utility-wise, bai allow long robes to have very high side slits (for mobility) while obscuring what you're wearing inside of them when you walk around. They're also just kind of a fashion statement though. A lot of Ming Dynasty fashion liked looking Wide and Steady like an equilateral polygon or something.
Ok that's it for now lmao sorry im slow and tired, if I think of any other body elements + if anyone asks for them (pls send asks I'm lonely) then I will add them!
