The History of Clothing

Early Modern · East Asia · 1500 - 1800

Early Modern East Asian Clothing

The Ming and Qing dynasties, Edo-period Japan, and Joseon Korea each codified distinctive national dress traditions that endure as cultural symbols today.

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China: Ming and Qing Dynasties

Ming dynasty embroidered rank badge with a lion, the emblem of a military official Rank badge with lion, Ming dynasty, 15th century, silk and metallic-thread embroidery on silk gauze. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Public Domain (Open Access).

The Ming dynasty (1368–1644) restored Han Chinese clothing traditions after nearly a century of Mongol rule. Court dress centered on the dragon robe, an elaborately embroidered silk garment featuring five-clawed dragons amid clouds and waves and reserved for the imperial family; officials could be awarded similar robes with four-clawed python (mang) designs as a mark of favor. Scholar-officials wore the round-collared robe with rank badges — embroidered squares on the chest and back depicting birds for civil officials and beasts for military ones. Women wore ao jackets or blouses over long, pleated qun skirts, with hair arranged in elaborate styles adorned with gold and jade ornaments.

The Manchu conquest of 1644 imposed dramatic changes on Chinese dress. The Qing dynasty mandated the changshan (a long, side-fastening robe) and the magua (a riding jacket) for men, along with the queue hairstyle. Manchu women wore a loose, straight robe that was a precursor of the qipao, while Han Chinese women were permitted to keep Ming-style jackets and skirts. The Twelve Symbols of imperial authority — sun, moon, stars, mountains, and eight other motifs — continued to adorn the emperor's ceremonial garments, maintaining an unbroken link to ancient Chinese cosmology even under Manchu rule.

Japan and Korea

Fragment of a Japanese kosode with paulownia crests and calligraphic characters, late 18th century Kosode fragment, Edo period, late 18th century, stenciled imitation tie-dyeing with silk and metallic-thread embroidery on silk crepe. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, gift of Miss Bella Mabury. Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain.

Edo-period Japan (1603–1868) saw the kimono reach its peak of artistic refinement under the Tokugawa shoguns. Strict sumptuary laws regulated fabric, color, and pattern 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, gold embroidery, and intricate shibori tie-dyeing, turned to subtler displays of wealth and to new techniques like yuzen dyeing. The obi, originally a simple sash, grew into a wide, ornamental belt that became a focal point of women's dress.

In Joseon-era Korea (1392–1897), the hanbok was formalized into a highly standardized national costume. Men wore a jeogori (short jacket) over baji (wide-legged trousers) with a long durumagi overcoat, topped by distinctive tall-crowned gat hats made of horsehair and bamboo. Women's hanbok featured a dramatically short jeogori paired with a high-waisted chima (skirt) that created a graceful, bell-shaped silhouette. White ramie and cotton cloth predominated in daily life, while brightly colored silks were reserved for ceremonies, weddings, and the court.

Textiles, Accessories, and the Art of Dress

Edo-period kosode with yuzen-dyed fan-shaped designs, 1700s, Tokyo National Museum Tokyo National Museum. Photo: Daderot. Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain.

Across early modern East Asia, clothing was inseparable from the textile arts that produced it. Chinese silk brocades reached new heights of complexity under the Ming and Qing dynasties, with imperial workshops like the Jiangning Weaving Department in Nanjing producing fabrics in intricate patterns of dragons, phoenixes, and auspicious symbols. The Suzhou embroidery tradition became particularly renowned, with skilled artisans splitting silk threads into as many as sixteen thinner strands to create pictorial works so fine they resembled paintings. Accessories carried equal weight — jade belt plaques, silk fans, and embroidered pouches were essential components of a complete outfit, and their quality and design communicated the wearer's taste and status as clearly as the garment itself.

In Japan, the textile arts became a primary vehicle for artistic expression. Yuzen dyeing, developed in Kyoto in the late 17th century, allowed artisans to paint elaborate pictorial scenes directly onto silk using rice-paste resist techniques, transforming the kimono into a wearable canvas. Shibori tie-dyeing produced patterns ranging from simple dots to elaborate geometric and abstract designs, while kasuri (ikat weaving) created softly blurred patterns, often indigo and white, by resist-dyeing threads before weaving. 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. These textile traditions elevated everyday garments into objects of extraordinary beauty and technical achievement.

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