Underwear

Do not ever belittle the wisdom of our ancestors. Although they lived a thousand years ago, they’ve already figured out the importance of underwears. In fact, females in ancient China need to dress at least two layers of underwear before they put on the outerwear. Today, I will to introduce those two layers of underwear: the inner clothes and the middle clothes.

Inner clothes:

The inner clothes are only required for females in archaic society, because China is a country which people look up to men and down on women. They believed that women should wear more to cover their bodies. The inner clothes play a role as a brassiere does in the contemporary society, but they are longer and thicker. They can cover not only the breasts, but also the belly, which means that it looks like a vest. However, forms of inner clothes changed with dynasty, so there are no typical inner clothes for traditional Chinese clothing.

Here is a picture of one of the inner clothes:

Source: Xitang

Middle clothes:

The middle clothes are suitable for both males and females. They are designed in the same way as the normal Ruqun that I introduced in the second post. It is generally white in order to fit all the outfit colors. Regardless of the fact that it looks like a normal Ruqun, it can only be worn inside of the other clothes. Going out with only the middle clothes will be regarded as impolite and indecent in ancient time. However, it can be dressed as pajamas while people were sleeping or just staying at home, also, people are required to dress the middle clothes while they were dressing the formal attire for important events.

Here is a picture of middle clothes:

Source: Lady Xi