Chapter 46 Section 5 Dressing

Women's hairstyles in the early Ming Dynasty basically kept the styles of Song and Yuan Dynasties.After Jiajing, there are more and more tricks.Women’s hair buns in this period were combed into flat circles, with jeweled flowers on the top of the “heart-pick bun”; , knotted with gold and silver silk, and decorated with pearls and emeralds on the top like a gauze hat.Another kind of peony head is to comb the hair to the top, tie it tightly with a headband or ribbon, then divide it into several strands, roll each strand up to the top, and then tie it up with a hairpin.The combed hairstyle is fluffy like a peony, hence the name "peony head".Similar to this combing method, except that there are "lotus head" and "lotus head" that change the form of curly hair.At that time, there was a folk song in the countryside of Suzhou that said: "There is a tank of oil at the foot of Nanshan Mountain, and the two sisters comb their hair together. The big one makes a dragon bun, and the small one makes a blue head." This shows that there were so many famous bun styles at that time.In addition, there is also a false bun, which is covered on the bun when worn and held with a hairpin.By the end of the Ming Dynasty, there were more hairstyles, such as "arhat bun", "lazy hair comb", "shuangfeiyan" and so on.

It was popular for women to wear bead hoops at that time.The bead hoop is a special decoration on the hair of women in the Ming Dynasty.Bead hoops were originally ornaments for women from rich and noble families, and later became popular among ordinary women.Young women also have the fashion of wearing headbands.The styles and materials are different. In winter, felt and velvet are often used to make them narrow in the middle and wide at both ends. The outside is covered with satin and colorful embroidery. buckle in the back.Because it has the effect of keeping out the cold, it is also called "warm forehead".Women from rich and noble families use otter (tata), fox, mink and other animal skins to warm their foreheads in winter. They crouch like rabbits around their foreheads, so they are also called "lying rabbits".There are many such descriptions in Ming and Qing novels.The style of the headband changed from time to time, it was wider at first, then narrower later, and in the early Qing Dynasty, there was only one narrow side, which was tied on the forehead and eyebrows.In addition, there are combs inserted in the hairline as decorations.Due to the advancement of handicrafts, the processing has become more sophisticated, and a comb decorated with golden silk craftsmanship was very popular among women at that time.Wrapping flowers around buns was also a fashionable decoration for women in the Ming Dynasty.The flowers are bright and fragrant, and women wear hairpins on their hairlines to give people a sense of refreshment when sitting up and walking. This is indeed a clever decoration method for women at that time.