Chapter 24 Section 5 Dressing

Dressing can show a woman's temperament and demeanor.Women in the Tang Dynasty paid great attention to headgear, and there were many kinds of hair buns, such as cloud bun (cloud-shaped bun), half-turned bun (shaped like a rolled lotus leaf), reverse bun, and eunuch bun.The women's ring hairpin is used to line the bun. It is made of silver with a gilt surface. The middle part is a thin leaf-shaped piece. The end of the leaf is divided into two strands and bent into an oval shape, so it is called ring hairpin. The fashion of hairpins in the Tang Dynasty was well-known both at home and abroad.The women on the murals of the Tang Dynasty in the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang have several beautiful flowers on their heads.In "Ladies with Flower Hairpins" by Zhou Fang, a painter of the Tang Dynasty, there are five women in light gauze, with their heads tied up in a high bun, and the hairpins on the topknots are decorated with extra-large flowers.Some hairpins have real flowers, and some hairpins have fake flowers.When Yang Guozhong was Prime Minister of the Right in the Tang Dynasty, the Yang brothers and sisters were extremely arrogant.In Du Fu's "Beauty Walk", "What is there on the head? Cuiwei (勹内盍) [e阴] leaves hang down the temple lips." The "(勹内盍) leaf" in Du Fu is the flower decoration on the bun.It can be seen that the ladies at that time were extremely particular about hair decorations.It is said that Tang Xuanzong was lucky to visit Huaqing Palace in October every year, and Yang Guozhong and sister Yang Guozhong's five families followed.Each family is a team, wearing the same color clothes, and the five families together look like a hundred flowers in full bloom.

The step shakers in the Tang Dynasty were quite different from those in the Han and Wei dynasties. They were mostly made of gold and jade in the shape of a bird, with a string of beads in the mouth of the bird, which swayed with the movement of the human body.Concubine Yang's golden steps are the most exquisite.It is Tang Minghuang sent people to take the first-class materials from Lishui, and it was carefully carved by famous teachers. Women in the Tang Dynasty paid attention to facial decorations.Rich, powerful, and leisurely ladies pay attention to their appearance.Some women put lead powder on their faces, and some rouge.Paint the cheeks with danzhi, the color is like brocade, it is called embroidered cheeks.Some have crow yellow painted on their foreheads.The eyebrows are painted in various styles with Dai (blue and black pigments), which are collectively called Daimei.Women in the prosperous Tang Dynasty had wide eyebrows, also known as laurel leaf eyebrows. They were dyed with faint black color, and the eyebrows were drawn short and wide, slightly in the shape of a figure eight.The unique Huadian (dian shop), also called multicolored flower seeds, Meizi, and flower hairpins, is generally made of gold foil, paper, fish bones, shad (shishi) scales, dragonfly wings, and camellia flower cakes, with exquisite workmanship. , colorful, mainly red, yellow and green, with round, pointed, flower-shaped and various symmetrical shapes, stick it on the forehead, temples, cheeks, and corners of the mouth.There is also a distinctive face decoration, which refers to drawing various figures on women's cheeks with paints such as danqing and vermilion, such as moon shapes and money shapes.Li He's poem "Entering the garden is white and beautiful, and the palace people are dimpled and yellow" ("Tong Shen Concubine Fu Gets Yugou Water") describes exactly this kind of women's facial makeup.Some makeup is a combination of painting and stickers, making two dots like soybeans, and some women like to use light crimson color on their lips. In ancient China, Qilian Mountain in Gansu Province was rich in red and blue flowers. The Huns called Qilian Mountain Yanzhi Mountain.The ancients made creams and powders from the flowers on Yanzhi Mountain for makeup.

There are many records in ancient books that women in Tang Dynasty dyed their nails.Zhang Hu described in his poem: "Ten fingers are slender and jade shoots are red, and geese are slanting through the green clouds." ("Zhang Chushi Poetry Collection") It is said that the ancients raised lizards, fed cinnabar to make them red, smashed them, and used red juice. Dye your nails.