A garment, a story
The "hanfu", when Chinese youth dress in the fashion of emperors
Audio 03:58
The "hanfu" is a traditional Chinese outfit, which is coming back into fashion among young people.
© Stephane Lagarde / RFI
By: Stéphane Lagarde Follow
5 mins
A mixture of nationalism and folklore, Han clothing fashion thrills Chinese youth.
A way to dive back into the prosperous era of ancient China and proudly display its culture.
Report from Xi'an, the former imperial capital, in northwest China.
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From our special envoys,
Stéphane Lagarde and Louise May,
in Xi'an, the former imperial capital
If it weren't for the
smartphones
held in the same hand as the fans, without these giant screens showing models in imperial clothes, their faces crossed out by the masks of the Covid-19 era, we would almost believe it at the time of this "great Tang dynasty, on which the sun never sets".
The name, a pompous nothing of the great pedestrian and commercial street in the south of Xi'an, attracts tourists in T-shirts, whose gait is slowed by the crushing heat of a late summer afternoon, but also two friends, a teacher and an accountant, with colored linen skirts that go up to the chest like in the days of the Tangs.
“
It's a great experience to dress up in these traditional costumes.
We came to visit the city and we rented these clothes for the afternoon.
It's very beautiful and it's our culture, you have to have confidence in your culture
,” exclaims the teacher.
The “
cultural self-confidence
” of a second world economy sure of itself, dear to the Chinese president, notably involves the rehabilitation of
hanfu
, literally the “clothing of the Han”, the majority ethnic group in China.
Mr. Tan is the manager of one of the best-known
hanfu
shops on the Tobao e-commerce platform.
His shop is a veritable cave of Alibaba, there are clothes from all the Han dynasties and all styles.
He explains to us why he rings the gong.
“
2000 years ago there was no messaging and no notification.
The gong was a way of drawing attention to an event.
A wedding, hop a gong!
The householder goes out for an errand, another gong.
Me, I started selling hanfu clothes when I saw the craze among young people explode on Tik Tok.
But long before that, in 2003, a handful of pioneers scoured museums and consulted ancient books in an attempt to bring ancient Chinese clothing back to life.
Fifteen years later, the trend has reached a new audience, thanks to social networks
”.
In Xi'an, an immersive theater in the heart of a shopping center replays the grandeur of the Tang dynasty every night, almost to sold-out crowds.
© Stephane Lagarde / RFI
Pixelated fashion: the magnificent silks, the beautiful embroideries seen on the coat racks of Monsieur Tan's shop are flooding TikTok (Douyin in China), WeChat, and Instagram.
The tunic tightened at the handles, held by a wide belt under the Song, the sleeves wide in the Ming.
Click click!
the giant wild goose pagoda park nearby is a real
selfie
factory , photos thanks to the clothes borrowed from the studio of Melle Lu, 26 years old.
This hanfu
enthusiast
set up her own shop when she was still a student, just before the pandemic.
She now receives up to forty clients a day, ready to pay 50 euros to be dressed, styled and made up like in the days of imperial China.
She tells :
“
The nearby Tang Paradise Park was established in 2016. The Chinese president came to visit it and he ranked the site among the top ten cultural and tourist streets in China.
Since then, popularity for hanfu has soared.
Government propaganda and support contributed to this development.
The authorities are promoting the Han culture, at the same time, we are still behind South Korea for example.
Koreans are doing better than us for their culture, and their culture is known all over the world
.”
Hanfu
as a tool of
Chinese
soft power
is a real goose that lays golden eggs for those who are surfing the new wave of ancient China.
In Xi'an, an immersive theater in the heart of a shopping center reenacts the grandeur of the Tang dynasty every night, almost to sold-out crowds.
Difficult to approach the extras in the resplendent costumes, but Mr. Yin wants more.
This weapons and ammunition controller in the police, came to see the show with his mom.
“
It's great, really great to see such a prosperous era of the Tang Dynasty.
We are very proud of China's development and we must protect our cultural heritage.
Roots give
us confidence,” he exclaims.
Claim, patriotic and ethnic, the crossed collar (
jiāolǐng
), the flap of the fabric always on the right side (
yòurèn
) make the Han costume different from that of other Chinese ethnic groups it seems.
“
Hanfu has always been part of our history, but the Qin Dynasty broke that bond.
In school textbooks, we have the traditional clothes of the 56 Chinese ethnic groups, except the Han who are represented in T-shirts.
My dream is for the hanfu to embody Chinese culture, like the kilt for the Scots
,” he says.
The
hanfu
garment emblematic of China today, takes its revenge on other national emblems such as the
qipao
dress of the Manchus imposed by the Qin dynasty, and the famous Mao collar jacket under the cultural revolution, which is d elsewhere rarely highlighted by experts and the media here.
The cultural revolution considers indeed as feudal, the imperial time.
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