Hanfu: The History and Revival of Chinese Traditional Dress

In a restored alley of Chengdu, a young woman advances with measured steps, the sleeves of a vast silk robe floating with each movement. A sash marks the waist, the collar crosses over the chest, fastened to the right; the panels fall to the ground and sweep the cobblestones. Passers-by photograph her. It is neither a film costume nor a bridal gown: it is a hanfu, and she wears it on an ordinary day, out of pride.

Hanfu is the traditional clothing of the Han, China's majority ethnic group. Long forgotten, supplanted by Western dress and the memory of Manchu attire, it has experienced a dazzling revival over the past twenty years, carried by a youth in search of roots. Behind the fabric one can read three thousand years of history, a precise aesthetic and a burning question: what is a "Chinese" garment?

Origins: three thousand years of silk and rites#

Hanfu is not a fixed costume but a family of garments whose forms succeeded one another from the Zhou (from the eleventh century BCE) to the end of the Ming (1644). The founding principle goes back to high antiquity: a loose garment, crossed in front, tied rather than buttoned, designed to drape the body without hugging it.

Its most constant feature is the jiaoling youren: the collar crosses and closes to the right, the left panel covering the right one. This seemingly trivial detail was loaded with meaning: closing to the left was reserved for the dead and associated with the "barbarians" of the margins. Wearing one's collar to the right meant placing oneself within civilization.

In classical Chinese thought, clothing does not merely dress the body: it speaks of rank, rite and each person's place in the order of the world. To get dressed was already an act of civilization.

The anatomy of a hanfu#

Beneath the apparent simplicity of the drape lies a precise vocabulary of pieces and assemblies, which varies according to era and use.

The major silhouettes#

Three structures dominate the history of hanfu. The shenyi, "deep robe," joins the upper and lower halves into a single piece, wrapping the whole body: it is the most solemn form. The ruqun pairs a short jacket (ru) with a long skirt tied high at the waist (qun); popularized under the Tang, it remains today the most worn women's hanfu. Men often wore a slit tunic-robe, the paofu, over trousers.

Colors, sleeves and accessories#

Wide sleeves (often longer than the arm) signaled status and ceremony; narrow sleeves suited work and war. Colors obeyed an imperial and seasonal symbolism, yellow becoming, under certain dynasties, the color reserved for the emperor. The outfit was completed with headdresses, hairpins and jade pendants.

The great rupture: the ban under the Qing#

Hanfu nearly disappeared. In 1644, the Manchu Qing dynasty seized power. To mark the submission of the Han, the new regime imposed, from 1645, the "tonsure decree": men had to shave their foreheads and wear the Manchu queue (the famous braid), as well as Manchu dress. The formula remained chilling: "keep your hair, lose your head; keep your head, lose your hair."

Within a few decades, traditional Han male dress vanished from daily life, replaced by the Manchu forms from which the qipao and the changshan — often wrongly thought "typically Chinese" — in fact descend. Hanfu barely survived except through certain ritual, religious or theatrical garments.

The revival: the hanfu movement#

At the turn of the 2000s, young Chinese — often meeting first online — set out to rediscover and once again wear the garment of their ancestors. The founding gesture is traced to 2003, when a man from Henan, Wang Letian, walked through his city dressed in a hanfu, an event relayed by the press. It was the birth of the hanfu yundong, the "hanfu movement."

The phenomenon has since taken on considerable scale. Millions of young people — mostly women — wear the hanfu at festivals, photo shoots, weddings, even in daily life. A flourishing industry of tailoring, rental and accessories has emerged, relayed by social media and costume dramas. The movement blends aesthetic passion, national pride and lively debates about authenticity: which dynasty to imitate, how far to respect the ancient cuts?

Hanfu today: between heritage and trend#

Hanfu has become an identity marker and a cultural product in its own right. It accompanies the rise of a "guofeng" (国风, "national style"), an aesthetic wave that reinvests traditional imagery in fashion, music and video games. For its devotees, to wear it is to reconnect a thread broken nearly four centuries ago.

The movement is not without tensions: between purists attached to historical cuts and lovers of freer inspirations, between cultural pride and commercial or nationalist appropriation. But it bears witness to a single desire: to give a visible body to a long-invisible memory.

To learn about hanfu is to learn a little Chinese and a great deal of history: jiaoling youren, ruqun, shenyi are all words that tell of a civilization of drape, rite and thread. Beneath the silk floating in the Chengdu alley, an entire past is learning to walk again.

FAQ#

What is hanfu? Hanfu (汉服, "dress of the Han") is the traditional clothing of the Han, China's majority ethnic group, worn from the Zhou to the Ming. It is recognized by its crossed collar closing to the right and its loose, tied forms.

Is the qipao a hanfu? No. The qipao (cheongsam) derives from the Manchu dress of the Qing, not from traditional Han clothing. The hanfu revival movement was partly built to recall this distinction.

Why had hanfu disappeared? After the Manchu conquest of 1644, the Qing imposed Manchu dress and hairstyle on Han men from 1645, on pain of death. Traditional hanfu then disappeared from daily life.

Why are young Chinese wearing hanfu again? Since the 2000s, the "hanfu movement" has blended identity quest, cultural pride and aesthetic taste. Worn at festivals, in photos or in daily life, hanfu has become a genuine fashion phenomenon.

Photo credits: the images used in this article come from Pexels and Unsplash and are royalty-free.