It’s not like horse face, but you can find 198 traditional Chinese colors. The most beautiful horse face skirt is on display, and orders have increased by 841% year-on-year.

On the occasion of the "5·18" International Museum Day, a pair of sisters from the Costume Performance Major of the Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts, wearing matching horse-faced skirts, walked hand in hand into the Shanghai Textile Museum on the banks of the Suzhou River to visit the Shanghai Textile Museum that opened that day. "Traditional Reconstruction of Clothing and All Things-Five-Colored Horse Face Skirt" special exhibition. The two told the Liberation Daily and Shangguan News reporter that this national fashion outfit only cost about 300 yuan, and complemented the colorful horse-faced skirts from the Ming and Qing Dynasties on the exhibition. In fact, like them, many viewers brought their own horse-faced skirts to attend the exhibition.

The "2024 Douyin E-commerce Women's Consumption Trend Data Report" shows that in the past year, the number of orders for horse-faced skirts on the platform increased by 841% year-on-year. Many people in the entertainment circle may not know that the horse-faced skirt actually does not look like a horse face, but is related to the "horse-faced" structure of the ancient city wall. They are hailed by Bao Mingxin, a professor and doctoral supervisor at the School of Fashion and Art Design of Donghua University, as "the master of Chinese skirts", and they can also be called the "most Han" mainstream women's clothing among traditional Chinese costumes.

Jia Xizeng, a new disciple of Bao Ming and professor at the Academy of Fine Arts of Tsinghua University, explained, “The horse face here is not the face of a horse, but refers to the enemy platform, pier, and wall platform. It is a letter T structure protruding from the city wall, which can form an angle with the city wall. , in order to eliminate blind spots under the city and attack the enemy from three sides from top to bottom. It was first seen in "Bei Lai" and "Bei Gaolin" in "Mozi". It is named after its long and narrow appearance like a horse's face. The door is very similar to the shape of this kind of horse face, so it is called: horse face skirt. It can be said that the horse face skirt originated in the Song Dynasty, flourished in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and is popular today.

"Ancient Chinese skirts were made up of multiple pieces of clothing. Some places needed to be patchworked, some places were stacked without stitching, some parts needed to be pleated or pleated, and the exposed parts would be subjected to various forms of sewing. Decoration, either jacquard or embroidery or printing and dyeing or adding gold..." As one of the earlier scholars in China to conduct research on horse-faced skirts, Bao Mingxin is also the mentor of co-curator Jia Yiliang, director of the Shanghai Textile Museum. He believes that horse-faced skirts The face skirt combines these characteristics and is the result and product of the long-term development of ancient Chinese skirts. It is well deserved to be called "one of the most beautiful costumes in China". "

Wearing "horse face" and taking photos with skirts. Photo by Xu Ruizhe

The theme of this year's International Museum Day is "Museums Dedicated to Education and Research", and the colors of the horse-faced skirt are once again highlighted. Similar to the concept of the horse-faced skirt exhibition, which is divided into five correct color units of red, green, yellow, white and black according to the "Five Elements and Five Colors", the exhibition was held on the occasion of the first domestic academic monograph on horse-faced skirts, "China's Most Beautiful Costumes Series - "Five Colors Huacai Horse Face Skirt" came out, and for the first time systematic research was carried out from the perspective of traditional Chinese colors, and 198 traditional Chinese colors were classified into the first edition of the "Huacai·National Colors" color card.

The first book of "China's Most Beautiful Clothing Series" selects the horse-faced skirt, which is the "top trend" of the national trend. The follow-up will also start from the specific traditional clothing shapes and accessories, such as cloud shoulders, rolled sleeves, jackets, underskirts, etc. Deep cultivation. Opening this thick book published by Donghua University Press, it can be called a "costume exhibition packed in the pages of a book" - 106 physical details of horse-faced skirts and 200 high-definition pattern structure details, truly reproducing the beauty of horse-faced skirts. The whole book focuses on "national colors", extracts and analyzes more than a hundred traditional colors presented in horse-faced skirts, and expresses the aesthetic characteristics of traditional Chinese colors.

For example, the "Multi-color dark floral satin plate with gold seeds embroidered with figures and courtyard patterns, the moonlight horse face skirt" is very rich in colors, including pink, light blue, red, purple, moon white, water red, dark blue, yellow, etc., and is made of silk. There are bright flowers on the ground, and the flower patterns are the Eight Treasures of the Buddha, which means good luck. There are 30 dark blue railings inlaid on both sides of the skirt. The railings can not only block the seams, but also reinforce the seams. Its simple color and mercerized pattern form a sharp contrast with the gorgeous dark damask, especially Gorgeous and gorgeous.

Check out the "red" color horse-faced skirt exhibition area. Photo by Xu Ruizhe

For the skirt, pattern decoration through embroidery, patchwork and other techniques can also achieve the same effect. Another example is the red dark floral satin ground of the "red dark floral silk embroidered with Na yarn and embroidered Eight Immortals pattern phoenix tail skirt", which uses Na yarn and other embroidery methods to embroider the patterns of dragons and phoenixes, and the Eight Immortals crossing the sea. Each side is cut into 8 strips. The decorations on the front and back horse faces are the same. The flying dragon flying in the sea of ​​clouds is embroidered with silk of various colors. The dragon head and tail are embroidered with peacock feather thread. The pattern of the Eight Immortals is located on the colorful strips on both sides of the skirt. The shape is vivid and interesting, the embroidery is neat, and the colors are rich.

It is reported that the "Five-color Huacai Horse Face Skirt" exhibition is jointly organized by the Shanghai Textile Museum, Tsinghua University Art Museum, Tsinghua Heilan Chinese Traditional Costume and Color Research Center, and Donghua University Press, from International Museum Day to July On the 18th, it was held in the special pavilion on the third floor of Shanghai Textile Museum.