Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 16. (Budapest, 1997)

FAJCSÁK Györgyi-Z. FIKÓ Katalin: Kínai szoknya a 19. század végéről - Restaurálás és dokumentáció

The restrained colours found on Northern Chinese garments were at striking variance with the hues used in the regions of the South. However, the guidelines of colour symbolism and choice of pattern were observed throughout the country. While young ladies assumed light shades of red, older ladies wore various shades of blue. In addition to the floral symbols of the different seasons, garments were ornamented with patterns symbolizing good fortune, long life and abundance. Young ladies' gowns featured the symbols of spring and youth, and those of married ladies the symbols of having children and of abundance. The attire of elderly ladies bore the symbols of long life and wealth. The colours most commonly used were light green and peach, but many garments were made from material in sapphireblue and scarlet. High-soled footwear and hair piled high, or reaching out far to the sides, were important accessories to attire. Despite the fact that the imperial court was located in Peking, fashion was dictated from Southern China. The first fashion centre was Suzhou, followed by Nanjing and Yangzhou from the beginning of the 19th century. By the end of the century, however, Shanghai had become the centre of fashion in China. Skirts in the Qing period During the Qing period skirts were worn only beneath upper clothing (gowns). A number of types of skirts were equally favoured and worn, and despite their different names they exhibited strong similarities in cut. At the beginning of the Qing period the socalled hundred-pleated skirts from Suzhou (Chinese: bai zhi qun) were regarded as garments for fashionable women. These were ornamented with embroidered parts on the front and on the back, as well as with a series of thin pleats on both sides. Phoenix-feather skirts appeared in Chinese ladies' wardrobes at the end of the 17th century and during the 18th century, during the reigns of the emperors Kangxi (1662-1722) and Qianlong (1735-95).' The "floating belts", reminiscent of wings and made of embroidered panels and ribbons ending in a wedge, were worn tied to the skirt at the waist. Suspended from the belt, pieces of material, often ornamented with metal-thread embroidery and heavily frayed out at the bottom, fell on the straightcut, un ornamented skirts underneath, like a skirt of leaves. The typical skirt at the end of the 19th century was the so-called fishscale-pleated skirt (Chinese: yulin bais hi qun). Its cut showed similarities to that of the hundredpleated skirt and phoenix-feather skirt. Some of the names given to skirts cut from two rectangular panels, one at the front and one at the back, and from trapezium-shaped bands, also reflect this similarity, such as embroidered phoenix skirts (Chinese: xiu fenghuang qun), or skirts of a hundred butterflies (Chinese: bai die qun). Both panels of a fishscale pleated skirt were tailored from a number of parts. The rectangular-shaped ornamental fields on the front and the back were adorned with ribbon around the edges. Beneath these fields two unornamented skirt fields folded over each other, while on both sides of the skirt trapezium-shaped fields lay alongside each other. The larger the number of these fields, and the greater their level of embellishment, the greater the ornateness of the skirt. Among the motifs most frequently used were those of the phoenix and the dragon, as well as those of the "hundred antiques" (jade carvings, vases, scrolls, musical instruments, written characters, etc.), popular Taoist good fortune motifs (fungus, calabash, ruji sceptres, burning coral-branches, etc.), plant and floral patterns, and - less frequently - garden scenes. With regard to cut and ornamentation, fishscale-pleated skirts constituted typical Chinese skirtwear in the second half of the 19th century, with their popularity peaking during the last quarter of that century. However, items demonstrating a high standard of craftsmanship were still made as late as the beginning of the 20th century. Contemporary travelogues made frequent mention of this of