Early Modern East Asian Clothing

China: Ming and Qing Dynasties

For a comparison of dated insignia, see Chinese rank badges in Ming and Qing clothing.

The Ming dynasty (1368–1644) set out to restore Han Chinese clothing traditions after Mongol Yuan rule, in a dress reform that lasted more than thirty years and reached every level of society.²⁴ Court dress centered on the dragon robe, an elaborately embroidered silk garment featuring five-clawed dragons above waves and reserved for the imperial family; officials could be awarded similar robes with four-clawed python (mang) designs as a mark of favor.^1,2,3 Officials wore rank badges — squares on the front and back of the robe depicting birds for civil officials and beasts for military ones.⁴ Women wore ao jackets or blouses over long, pleated qun skirts.^6,7

The Manchu conquest of 1644 imposed dramatic changes on Chinese dress. In 1645 the Qing court ordered all Han Chinese men to shave their heads, wear the Manchu queue, and change their dress.⁵ By the end of the dynasty, men commonly wore a long, side-fastening robe, the changshan, with a short jacket, the magua, a name meaning riding jacket.^26,27,28 Manchu women wore a long one-piece robe that some historians see as a precursor of the qipao, while Han Chinese women wore jackets and skirts.^8,9 The Twelve Symbols of imperial authority — sun, moon, stars, mountain, dragon, pheasant, and six other motifs — also adorned the Qing emperors' robes, linking Manchu rulers to symbols of the natural universe said to date back to around 2000 BCE.^10,25

The later story of the Manchu women's robe is covered in qipao history.

Japan and Korea

For Korean garment components and ceremonial ensembles, continue to hanbok history.

In Edo-period Japan (1603–1868), the kimono was a highly visible art form through which people displayed their taste and wealth.¹⁴ Sumptuary laws regulated fabrics, colors, and dyeing techniques by social class: samurai wore formal dress such as the kamishimo — a stiffened, sleeveless jacket and pleated trousers, often of hemp in small stenciled patterns — bearing family crests (mon), while wealthy merchants, periodically barred from luxuries such as purple or red fabric, embroidery, and intricate shibori tie-dyeing, turned to subtler displays of wealth, such as forbidden colors worn beneath plain outer clothing, while artisans developed new techniques that imitated banned ones.^14,15,23 The obi, the sash that secures the kimono, became much wider and more exuberant for women in the 18th century, often richly woven or embroidered.¹⁶

For a closer look at the Japanese garment and its accessories, see kimono history, including kosode and obi.

In Joseon-era Korea (1392–1897), the hanbok took the form most familiar today, and its variations signaled the wearer's gender, social class, marital status, and age.²⁰ Men wore a jeogori (short jacket) over baji (wide-legged trousers) with a long durumagi overcoat, topped by distinctive gat hats made of horsehair and bamboo.^20,21 Women's jeogori grew steadily shorter over the period, worn with a full chima (skirt) that was most voluminous for women of high rank.²⁰ Plain white hanbok predominated in daily life, while brightly colored and richly decorated silks were reserved for the court and for weddings.²⁰

Textiles, Accessories, and the Art of Dress

Across early modern East Asia, clothing was inseparable from the textile arts that produced it. Nanjing's silk brocades, known as yun brocade and woven with gold and silver thread, were reserved for the imperial family under the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties,⁶ and under the Qing the imperial silk bureau at Jiangning (Nanjing), in operation from 1645 to 1904, brought the craft to its peak.¹¹ The Suzhou embroidery tradition became particularly renowned, and under the Qing Suzhou earned the title City of Embroidery; artisans split silk threads into halves, quarters, eighths, sixteenths, or even finer strands to create works so detailed they resemble paintings.^12,13 Accessories carried equal weight: the Qing dragon robe was worn with a hat, surcoat, collar, belt, necklace, and boots, and every element carried details that distinguished the wearer's rank, status, and gender.²

In Japan, the textile arts became a primary vehicle for artistic expression. Yuzen dyeing, named for the Kyoto fan painter Miyazaki Yūzen, whose designs were popular around the 1690s, allowed artisans to paint elaborate pictorial scenes directly onto silk using rice-paste resist techniques, transforming the kimono into a wearable canvas.^17,18 Shibori tie-dyeing produced patterns ranging from minute dots to elaborate stitched and bound designs, while kasuri (ikat weaving) created softly blurred patterns, often indigo and white, by resist-dyeing threads before weaving.^14,19 Korean artisans excelled in jogakbo, the art of piecing together scraps of silk and ramie into wrapping cloths with compositions that anticipated modern abstract art.²² These textile traditions elevated everyday garments into objects of extraordinary beauty and technical achievement.

Sources

1. Dragon Robe Fragment — Penn Museum, University of Pennsylvania (five-clawed dragon from a Ming imperial family member's robe).Reference 1
2. Five-Clawed Dragon — Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, 2017.
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3. Imperial Dragons — Shigeki Kawakami, Kyoto National Museum, 1998 (five-clawed dragons on Ming emperors' robes; four-clawed mang robes bestowed on loyal subjects from the mid-15th century).Reference 1
4. Rank Badge (buzi) — Cleveland Museum of Art (1391 regulations: birds for civil, animals for military officials).Reference 1
5. A Question of Hairdos and Fashion — Xing Hang, Oriens Extremus 47, 2008 (1645 order to shave the head and adopt Manchu dress).Reference 1
6. In Praise of Silk: Fashion with Tradition in China — China National Silk Museum (Ming women's costume as a top with long pleated skirt).
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7. 'Royal Cat' women's ensemble — Yun Cang Yue Xiu, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2023 (modern Ming-style jacket, ao, and pleated ma mian qun skirt).Reference 1
8. Fashion Fusion — Rachel Silberstein, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, 2016 (Manchu robes and Han jackets and skirts).Reference 1
9. Sober Luxury: Three Examples of Late Kesi Silk Tapestries in the Náprstek Museum — Helena Heroldová, Annals of the Náprstek Museum 34/2, National Museum, Prague, 2013 (Manchu one-piece dress as origin of the qipao).Reference 1
10. Court Robe with Twelve Symbols — Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.Reference 1
11. Jiangning Imperial Silk Manufacturing — Nanjing Museum Administration.Reference 1
12. Suzhou Embroidery, Jiangsu Province — Smithsonian Folklife Festival, 2014.Reference 1
13. Embroidery Techniques from Around the World: Suzhou — Embroiderers' Guild of America, 2025 (threads split into sixteenths or finer).Reference 1
14. The Art of Imitation — Jenny Hall, National Gallery of Victoria, 2025 (Edo sumptuary laws on shibori and red or purple cloth).
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15. Kamishimo — Victoria and Albert Museum (1800–1850; hemp with stencilled komon pattern and the crests of the Aoyama clan; "the everyday formal wear of the Japanese samurai").Reference 1
16. Obi — Victoria and Albert Museum (women's obi grew much wider in the 18th century).Reference 1
17. Kyoto Handpainted Yūzen Dyeing — Art Research Center, Ritsumeikan University, Google Arts & Culture.Reference 1
18. A bit of knowledge about dyeing — Kyoto Museums Association.Reference 1
19. Yumigahama Kasuri Textiles — Tottori Prefectural Government, Google Arts & Culture (resist-tied threads; blurred indigo-and-white motifs; local kasuri from 1804–1818).Reference 1
20. Hanbok: traditional Korean dress — Jenny Kim, Victoria and Albert Museum.
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21. Gat (hat) — Victoria and Albert Museum (woven horsehair crown, bamboo brim).Reference 1
22. Jogakbo – traditional Korean patchwork — Victoria and Albert Museum.Reference 1
23. 謡曲が『源氏ひいながた』の小袖模様に与えた影響 — Michelle Kuhn, Art Research 18, Art Research Center, Ritsumeikan University, 2018 (article in English; seven laws of 1683 restricting thin silk crepe, embroidery, and kanoko shibori).Reference 1
24. Restoring Chinese Costume: The Reform of the Clothing System during the Reign of Hongwu — Zhang Jia, Journal of Chinese Studies 58, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2014 (English abstract: Ming costume reform to restore Chinese dress after the Jin and Yuan, lasting more than thirty years).Reference 1
25. Robe — Victoria and Albert Museum (Qing emperor's robe; the Twelve Imperial Symbols listed).Reference 1
26. Man's robe — Victoria and Albert Museum (changpao, 1900–1930, frequently worn with a short front-fastening jacket).Reference 1
27. Jacket (magua) — Victoria and Albert Museum (riding jacket, a name commonly used for a Chinese man's short jacket).Reference 1
28. Man's robe (changshan) — Victoria and Albert Museum (1930s; the changshan as a man's long outer robe).Reference 1