A Study On XiYang Costume Modelling Before The 20th Century

The two characters "xiyang" refer to Europe or Western Europe. The evolution and development of the Western costume modelling includes two mainstreams before the 20th century, one is the costume modelling system of ancient Greece, ancient Rome before Middle Ages, the other is the costume modelling system in Europe,Rome and Paris after Middle Ages, the latter inherited and developed the former. The costume modelling in ancient Greek and Rome can be traced back to ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, which is the starting point of the research.Gothic period as watershed, the XiYang costume modelling from ancient southern broad style to the northern narrow style goes through the era of ancient broadcostume, narrow costume era and modern narrow costume era .The costume modellings in the ancient civilized country and other areas at the same period form the foundation of the development of the later costume modelling . Costume modelling from ancient Egypt to ancient Rome is known as "pieced cloth costume modelling", i.e. up on the human body wrapped the costume modelling made by one or several cloths which are not sewed, which is also called" wrapping and winding costume". Without any decoration, the " wrapping and winding costume" in ancient Greek fully show the beauty of human body and are still periodicallying reappearing on the costume stage.Medieval costume is developped from the square shape of ancient Rome, the deformation of Byzantine period, transition of "Roman period" and the "Gothic period ", finally to the narrow-style cosrume represented by Teuton people. Since then, XiYang Costume entered the period of three-dimensional modeling, disengaging the simple plain structure of ancient costume. The typical medieval civilization characterized by its religious nature is also reflected in the costumes, which is in the pursuit of the exaggerated structure and decoration and strange pattern.From the beginning of the Renaissance, the traditional loose-style costume gradually gave way to narrow costum style, Xiyang Costume Modelling entered the era of hoop skirts. Modelling in costume design is emphasized with complicated parts. The Costume Modelling is to focus on the figure through its own changes. The modelling method changed from the flat form to the three-dimentional form. Modern costume modelling has strong gender differences, men's costume is centered on the size of the upper body, stressing the thick-featured upper body and sexy and skin-tight lower body, forming a box shape, while women's costume is focused on the size of the lower body, stressing slender waist and fat bottom, low-collar and chest-exposed, forming the shape of Flip-bell. The strong differences between the sexes in Modern Costume Modelling is the major achievements of the development of XiYang Narrow Costume modelling from Gothic period, which completely distinguished from the ancient costume and the eastern costume.With rich contents and multiple form in western clothing style, many countries and peoples involved, regional differences in costume modelling existing between all peoples and all the courtries in the same period, the author just selected leading nations and representative costumes in the country to study, discussing the development and changes in three different historical periods—the ancient times, medieval and modern times, different geographical characteristics as well as costume modelling in the same area or the same type of costume in the timeline, analyzing the reasons and the law for the changes of clothing style and forming a more systematic and comprehensive understanding of the costume modelling in different period so as to set up a new light for the understanding of cotume design and provide some help for those who are interested in the topic.