Red Chamber Clothing

Author: Li Junjun
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-02-01
Features: In this world, there exist two kinds of beauty that are mutually irreplaceable: natural and artificial. The skin of animals, the feathers of birds are beautiful, and when transformed into the clothing of primitive humans, they possess a unique kind of beauty. The differences between them are akin to what the French writer Charles Baudelaire said in his essay collection My Heart Is Bare: "All beauty and nobility are the result of reason and thought."
"Therefore, fashion should be seen as a symbol related to a certain ideal, located in the human mind above the accumulation of all the rough, vulgar, and base aspects of natural life. Fashion should be seen as an elevation and transformation of nature, or to say, as a continuous and ever-renewing attempt to alter nature."
"Every piece of fashion is an endeavor towards beauty, each endeavor being new and achieving varying degrees of success. Fashion is almost close to an ideal, and the restless soul of humanity is constantly driven to realize that ideal." In the process of realizing the ideal, clothing gives birth to a colorful beauty, blending vast cultures. Dream of the Red Chamber is a dream—it is a dream of life, and also a dream of clothing; it belongs to Cao Xueqin, Jia Baoyu, Lin Daiyu, and also to all those countless fans of the Red Chamber. The descriptions of clothing in the book also reflect that Cao Xueqin had experienced a life of luxury; his nobility was innate. Therefore, the descriptions of clothing were not a means for him to flaunt his status or knowledge, but rather a natural like "a lotus blooming in clear water."
Dream of the Red Chamber is a romantic realistic novel, as well as an encyclopedia. It encompasses everything, and people from different trades can search for traces related to themselves in this masterpiece. An elderly traditional Chinese medicine practitioner reading Dream of the Red Chamber might focus on the precise prescriptions; a landscape architect might be captivated by the magnificent and intricately designed Grand View Garden; a gourmand might be drawn to the exquisite recipes; while a clothing researcher or admirer would fully appreciate the various styles of elegant and luxurious clothing depicted in Dream of the Red Chamber.
Dream of the Red Chamber is centered around the Jia family, depicting the lives of the Jia, Wang, Shi, and Xue four great families. Cao Xueqin made full use of his knowledge of clothing in the creation of Dream of the Red Chamber. The frequent appearances of clothing in the book, along with descriptions of materials, embroidery, and more, are astonishing in their variety and richness of color, making it a grand spectacle of clothing in ancient Chinese novels.
This book explores the clothing of Dream of the Red Chamber from three aspects: the characteristics of Red Chamber clothing, the materials used, and the patterns of the clothing, aiming to preliminarily present the historical process of the development of clothing.