Study On Traditional Chinese Clothing System In The Ming And Qing Dynasties And Its Cultural Connotations

Costume is one of the external manifestations of culture,it not only has the role of sheltering the rain but also the aesthetic expression of culture,economy and so on under certain historical background,and is the unity of the spiritual world and the material world.Clothing includes "clothing" and "decoration",since the beginning of the Shang Dynasty,“yi”(clothing)in upper body and“shang”(dress)in lower part of the body is the earliest clothing system in China.In ancient times,people equated clothing with heaven,connected dress with earth,representing a simple materialism:that is,man is the unity of heaven and earth,which expressed the "heaven and man unity" concept.Until the Zhou Dynasty,the concept of dress hierarchy also gradually appeared.According to the "Chou Li" records,at that time,the "clothing" was divided into five categories,respectively,sacrificial clothing,court clothing,military uniforms,wedding and mourning clothing."Ornament" as an auxiliary of clothing,constituted a unified whole together with clothing.The wearer put some ornaments on his hair,ears,neck,hands and other parts of the body to reflect not only his status symbol,but also the aesthetic embodiment of the time.In this paper,we discuss the evolution of "clothing" in the Ming and Qing Dynasties,and study the relationship between the development and transformation of ancient Chinese clothing and social factors such as production mode and development level,cultural etiquette and moral standards at that time.The thesis is divided into five parts,the first part is an introduction to the background and significance of the paper,and from a large number of domestic and foreign related articles to find related theories and content,to establish the research method.The second part demonstrates the external factors of clothing development from the social and economic basis of the Ming and Qing Dynasties.The third and fourth parts specifically illustrate the evolution of traditional clothing process in Ming and Qing Dynasties in the aspects of court dress systems concerning emperors,empresses and imperial concubines,officials,titled madams of those officials,and dress systems relating scholars,farmers,artisans and merchants.Through the difference of specific clothing regulations,the aesthetic significance and class attributes are explained.The fifth part is the summary of this thesis,through the summary of the contents of the first four chapters,the cultural connotation of the clothing system of the Ming and Qing Dynasties is manifested,and the paper hopes to provide clues for the current clothing design,and enhance the national attributes of Chinese clothing.