Fashion magazine (vol 4)

Vol. 04

YI ETHNIC MINORITY GROUP

YI CLOTHING----DIANXI STYLE

YI CLOTHING -- LIANGSHAN STYLE

TRADITIONAL FESTIVALS OF YI

YI CLOTHING -- CHUXIONG STYLE YI CLOTHING -- HONGHE STYLE YI CLOTHING -- WUMENGSHAN STYLE YI CLOTHING--DIANDONGNAN STYLE

Englisgh / Issue 2, 2017 国内统一刊号 CN32-0110 国外发行代号 WT0110T 邮发代号 27-119

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YI ETHNIC MINORITY GROUP The Yi ethnic minority group located mainly in rural areas of Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, Guangxi, etc. They have a long history of culture and folk art. They have their unique language as well. Yi, in Han language, it means solemn, ancient, abundant. Yi clothing is very signature among other minority groups. It is the essence of Yi’s art, as it embodies the whole aesthetic, religion, politics, philosophy, cultural customs of thousands of years. Yi clothing, on the one hand, reveals the psychological culture of the group, on the other hand, it is a painting for outsiders to glimpse Yi’s history, life, culture and civilization.

Yi clothing has an incredibly great variety with unique colour and features.

There are as much as 300 styles in Yi clothing, in some way, it is the king of Chinese clothing. The decoration of the clothing express Yi people’s worship of nature, as well as the passion for work and life. Yi people of different regions have developed their distinctive dressing styles and customs. Apart from gender, age, occasional wear, daywear, Yi clothing also includes wedding wear, mourning wear, priest service wear and so forth.

Since Yi has many subgroups which locate at different areas with complicated natural environment, after all these years, they have developed different cultural customs with geographical characteristics. According to existing regional traditions, colour, textile, pattern, crafting method, decorative patterns, dress codes and alike, in summary, Yi clothing can be categorized into six types, Liangshan style, Wumengshan style, Honghe style, Zhendongnan style and Chuxiong style.

Yi clothing contains rich symbolic meanings, and it is the carrier and representation of Yi’s material and cultural civilization, which also witnesses and reveals the development of Yi’s society, history and culture. This article will explore the above six types of Yi clothing according to different regions.

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YI CLOTHING LIANGSHAN STYLE

Liangshan Yi people live in Liangshan area, Sichuan, where is at an altitude of more than 2000 metres. More than a thousand years, Yi people have developed its unique clothing style in this reserved and traditional society. Liangshan style did not change much before Qing dynasty. Apparently, Liangshan style shows classes difference. There are still tiny differences across areas, yet main features are still the same, e.g. men wear trousers and wear their hair in the Heavenly Buddha style -- a long lock of hair grown from the crown and wound into a single ringlet, while women wear Pi Zhan (a kind of wool capes) and barefooted.

1. Tops of Liangshan Yi Style Pi Zhan and Ca Er Wa are the typical clothing of Yi. Ca Er Wa is a kind of wool cape, normally in white, grey and blue, decorated with checks, twills, ripplings, pumpkin seed patterns, etc.

Its collar would use wool thread to do ties, there are also 33cm tassels at the bottom hem, as it has no proper collar and sleeves, so it looks like a bell-shaped cape. Producing a piece of Ca Er Wa needs a couple of months.

Because of the harsh living environment, Ca Er Wa is an essential clothing to carry through all seasons. It can keep the body warm as cape or blanket, while on other occasions e.g. festivals, weddings, funerals, even when one’s dead,

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they would wear Ca Er Wa. In all, Ca Er Wa plays a significant role in Yi Clothing.

1.1 Men’s Top of Liangshan Yi Style Menswear of Liangshan Yi Style pay much attention to practical use, so it does not have many varieties or complex structure, neither decorative patterns. The use of colour is unadorned and plain. Men’s top of Liangshan Yi style prefers wearing tight, including underwear, outwear and waistcoat. The top is usually short, no longer than navel, outwear coat is usually black, navy and blue, with rightward short collar and narrow sleeves.

There are decorations along sleeves and chests. Underwear is usually white gown, but waistcoat is usually with heavy decoration.

Middle age men wear wider tops than young ones, with buttons down the front or right buttons, large buckle loop but no decorations.

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1.2 Women’s Top of Liangshan Yi Style Womenswear of Liangshan Yi style is very elegant. Tops are usually made of wool and cotton, with various sewed patterns around the lapel, front lapel, back collar and sleeves hem. Blouse and gown are the major top dress. People prefer blouse with tight shape and slim sleeves, decorated collar, shoulder, chest and bottom hems; while gown is always worn on top of the blouse, it has short wide sleeves and right lapel, as well as swirl or ripple patterns over the body. Applique is widely used, plus weaving and embedding.

Young lady and women wear fascinating clothes, with right lapel tops decorated with clouds and geometrical patterns.

They also enjoy matching bright colours, e.g. red, yellow, green, pink. There are many knurling patterns around shoulders, chest and sleeves. They like to use exquisite buckles to decorate the right lapels, which accentuate young ladies’ graceful figures and extraordinary charms.

2.2 Women’s Bottoms of Liangshan Yi Style

2. Bottoms of Liangshan Yi Style 2.1 Men’s Bottoms of Liangshan Yi Style Men’s trousers is a signature style of Yi clothes. According to different regions, it can be categoried into two types: trunk pants and stem-pipe trousers. Stem-pipe trousers have wide waist and crotch, but very slim trousers legs, looks like harem pants. Trunk pants have wide legs, the widest one can be 170cm, so the whole look is like skirts, similar to skirt pants.

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Yi women wear pleated skirts at most of the times. The skirt is made up of hundreds of pleats, usually with floor length.

Different regions have different pleated skirts, some of them are pleatless or with few pleats on the body, only pleats are attached to the hem. Mostly, it’s a waist-tight and pleated hem skirt, which shows women’s beautiful figure and creates a sense of stylish and elegant. Some pleated skirts are sewed with black, yellow, blue and white coloured cloths, which looks like a collage tube skirt, while pleats below knees look like a fan. The full skirt is quite structured and oversized, so the shape helps wave gently and gracefully.

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blue or navy scarfs and make a long cone-shaped knot in the forehead, and they also wrap thin bamboo sticks inside the scarf with an oblique insertion. The outstanding stick is around 20-30 cms to accentuate men’s masculinity, so the bun is always known as “hero knot” or “hero bun”.

3.2 Women’s Hair Piece of Liangshan Yi People

3. Headpiece of Liangshan Yi Style Liangshan Yi style has a tradition of “head focus”. Some sayings describe the significance of headpiece in Yi: “Feather makes birds beautiful, headpiece makes people lovely.” “Yi people decorate their heads, Zang people decorate their waists, while Han people decorate their feet”. So to speak, Yi people pay much attention to their headpiece decoration.

3.1 Men’s Headpiece in Liangshan Yi Style Liangshan Yi men keep traditional hair style with a bun called “vertebral bun”. For them, this bun symblolized male power which is sacred and inviolable, and Yi people call it “Heaven Bodhisattva”. They usually wrap their heads with

Liangshan Yi women start to wear adult dresses as soon as they get their first periods. The adult signatures are three layers pleated dress, changing single braid to double braids, and wearing women headscarves. Since then, they can enjoy their social life and start to find their love. Yi women’s second important turning point is the first birth of a baby, after that they need to take off their headscarves and change to hats. In other words, a woman wearing this hat means she is already a mother. To take a young woman as an example. She would usually wear a embroidered square scarf and fold the front into a tile shape to cover the forehead and then use strings and braids to wrap around. At the same time, she would wear silver ear loops or earrings and decorated her collar with a silver flower badge. After giving birth, women wear lotus leaves-shaped hat or bamboo round hat with black cloth. For children, they usually wear cockscomb hat, which shows Yi people’s love of nature, as they think rooster is the most intelligent bird, symbolizing light and liberal. Therefore, wearing a cockscomb hat shows parents’ love and their hope of happiness.

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YI CLOTHING CHUXIONG STYLE 10

Chuxiong Yi style is most popular around Chuxiong, Yunnan. This style of dress emphasis on functions.

Because of the living environment with mountains and extreme cold weather, plus Yi people’s fondness of black, they prefer thick, warm clothes in blue or navy.

Generally, they wear right lapel short coat with long trousers.

1. Tops of Chuxiong Yi Style 1.1 Men’s Top of Chuxiong Yi Style Men usually wear plain tops such as “Ca Er Wa”, “Pi Zhan”, and double lapel clothes, with standing collar, cloth buttons, and double pockets, usually with coloured flower patterns.

Buttons are made of blue cloths and dotted along the lapel.

Woolen Ca Er Wa or Pi Zhan are worn on top of the clothes.

Chuxiong Yi men’s “fire weed collar” is very special, and

made of unique wild plants called “fire weed” in Chuxiong area. At the time of late summer or early autumn, young men would collect these fire weed while young women would twist them with thin linen thread, and then use their complicated method to make fire weed cloths and then clothes. Fire weed cloth has a feature of anti-insects and anti-corrosion, so it could make the outfit warm in winter but cool in summer, rain-proof and endurant. It’s said that this type of clothes can improve health and skin beauty, so it is counted as the greatest invention of Yi women.

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1.2 Women’s Top of Chuxiong Yi People Shirt and blouse are two main tops for Chuxiong Yi women.

They are usually right-lapeled, sliver-button or silver flower badge decorated collar. Shirts can be long or short. It can be long to ankle-length, or short to hips. The structure is always wide with slim sleeves, and patterns are sewed on the back or sleeves. The blouse is usually short with many decorations, in black, navy, pink, red, green colour.

Decorative patterns vary and scatter layer by layer, with barely background colour. Cross-stitch work, inlay and flat embroidery are widely used, and patterns are mainly flowers and they are usually decorated around collar, cuffs and lapels, while clouds and cherry blossom patterns are usually decorated on the chest or the shoulder.

2. Bottoms of Chuxiong Style 2.1 Men’s Bottom of Chuxiong Style Chuxiong men wear Pizhan and wide pants, which are made of blue, navy and black cloths. Regarding to different areas, people wear trousers with various width and length. Some are pleated and wide, which looks like a lady’s skirt from a particular angle while some have huge waist with 2-3 feets and it needs to fold a few times and tight up with a cloth.

2.2 Women’s Bottom of Chuxiong Style Trousers and medium-skirts or long-skirts are usually worn.

Women from Yongren county of Chuxiong wear special trousers made of black cloth and sewed with rattan stripes, dancing figures, cherry blossoms and lanterns. They are finely embroidered and exquisite. Pleated skirts from Dayaotanhua are very outstanding, which are sewed with black, red, blue, pink, purple and other colours. Normally it’s sewed with more than 20 pieces and it looks like tiger fur, as Chuxiong Yi people worship tiger, so this unique collaging technique has a substantial research value when studying Yi clothing.

Fire weed gown is the love token of Chuxiong Yi people.

When they fall in love, the girl will send the boy a fire weed gown and a pair of “pi la ta”(fire weed shoes), and that means she agrees to the young man’s courtship.

3. Head piece of Chuxiong Yi People Women normally wrap headscarves, or braids, or wear embroidered hats. There are forty different types and each type of head piece can represent a particular area of Yi people.

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YI CLOTHING HONGHE STYLE Honghe Yi style is common around Honghe area in the south of Yunnan, Jianshui, SHiping, Yuanyang counties are the typical ones of Honghe style. Women from these areas often wear bright and colourful clothes, so they are called “flower waist Yi” by others.

Menswear are not much different from other Yi.

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1. Tops of Honghe Yi Style Menswear are quite the same with other areas, usually with standing collar, right-lapelled short tops and wide pants while womenswear are of a great variety, some are right-lapeled long gown, some are medium or short tops, with long pants. Waistcoats are worn on top, while aprons are worn too. They have various head pieces, which are decorated with silver balls or knitting wools. Outfits are in matching or blocked bright colours with fine decorations, usually embroidered with natural or geometric patterns.

Women from Yuanyang area wear distinctive clothes, usually in blue, green, red and yellow. They often wear two-piece clothes, inside with embroidered tops with either longsleeves or short sleeves. Sleeves are slim and patterned with flower, bird, insect, butterfly or silver balls. Half-sleeves gown coat are often worn on top, while the gown reaches the knee or below the knees, and it’s decorated with silver balls or necklace to create a fabulous effect. Embroidery, inlay, stitch-cross work and alike are widely applied.

2. Bottoms of Honghe Yi Style Men wear wide pants as other Yi people. Women wear wide pants too, but they would use two or more high contrast coloured cloths to make the pants, and decorate the hem with flower patterns.

Wearing waistbands is the most distinctive feature of “Flower Waist Yi”. They would usually wear wide waistband decorated with silver balls. Big knots drip along and create a particular beauty.

3. Head Piece of Honghe Yi Style There are many head pieces of Honghe Yi style, and most of them are decorated with silver balls or knitted threads. Silver accessories are regarded beautiful so ladies often wear coloured hats decorated with silver balls. On top of the hat, they would also wear an extra silber balls headband, while married women often do braids. This kind of hat is related to a legend of “rooster conquering monster”, due to its cockscomb shape, it’s called “rooster hat”, which represents happiness and good fortune, while those silver balls decorations represent stars and moon, symbolizing light would always come along.

Honghe “flower waist Yi”’s traditional clothing is exquisitely made. A complete set needs three to four years production. Ladies need to master embroidery, stitchcross work, applique, crisperding, crochet, patch, inlaid and others.

They need to start from seven or eight years old to learn and after a few years hard work could produce these refined clothes.

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YI CLOTHING WUMENGSHAN STYLE Wumengshan Yi style used to involve a lot of fur and linen, but now it prefers cloth in black, blue or navy. Basic wearing style of both men and women include right-lapeled long gown with long pants. Womenswear includes decorated collar, lapel and skirt hem. According to different regions, Wumengshan style can be divided into Weining style and Panlong style.

1. Weining Style Weining style is popular in Bijie of Guizhou, Liuzhi, Shuicheng of Liupanshui, Zhenxiong, Yiliang, Weixin of Yunnan Zhaotong, Xuyong, Gutao of Sichuan. Both men and women wear blue or navy rightlapeled gown with long pants, as well as black or white headscarf, white waistband and embroidered “Yaozi Shoes”. Men wear unpatterned clothes and wool Pi Zhan when going out; womenswear is more complicated, there are always coloured patterned collar, cuffs, lapel and hem. Women often wear navy headscarf and wrap it like a “Ren” shape, as well as silver accessories like “le zi”, earrings, bangles, rings, white or embroidered apron and ribbons on the back. Some women of particular areas would wear short tops with long skirts.

2. Panlong Style Panlong style is usually worn in the south of Pan County in Guizhou, as well as Longlin in Guangxi. The most popular style is navy blue rightlapeled long gown, similar to Weining style, but people from these regions prefer white headcarves. Womenswear is quite plain and casual, so women wear black apron with two embroidered ribbons in the front. Longlin style womenswear is a bit different, as it’s right-lapeled short tops with black short apron, dark pants or four gored long skirts.

Only slits or skirt hems would be decorated, which is simpler and more elegant compared to Weining style. Women wrap navy scarves and wear earrings, bangles, and embroidered hawk shoes.

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YI CLOTHING DIANDONGNAN STYLE Diandongnan style is usually seen in the south of Yi area and Guangxi province. Women oftern wear right-lapeled tops with long pants, some wear skirts depending on regions. Men wear tops with buttons down the front, waistcoat on top and wide pants. People prefer white, blue and black as background colour, and decorate garments with plants, animals or geometric patterns.

Embroidery, inlay and wax print techinques are widely used. According to different regions, this style can be divided into Lunan style, Mile style and Wenxi style.

1. Lunan Style Lunan style is mainly popular in Lunan, Mile, Qiubei, Kunming of Yunnan province. Men wear traditional cloths such as fire weed cloth and linen. Tops are usually with buttons down on the front, waistcoat on top with wide pants. Women wear front-short, backlong, right-lapeled tops, medium or long pants, as well as aprons and decorated capes. White and light blue are used mainly. Women head pieces vary according to regions. Lunan women wear cloth headbands.

The colour choice of headbands depends on the wearer’s age and living area. Lunan old ladies wear black and red headbands, while young women prefer multi-coloured ones. On both sides of ears, there are a pair of triangle embroidered cloth attached to the headbands, while beads on the back drap to the front chest. It is said that this type of headband imitates the shape of rainbow, and it is for remembering a girl who committed suicide in fire for love. Women wear pointed embroided shoes and bell patterned bags, linen bags, peach blossom bags and stitch-crossed waistbands.

2. Mile Style

Womenswear is more or less the same with other regions, such as right-lapeled tops or tops with buttons down to the front, long pants, aprons and waistband.

Blue, white and green are the most used colour, while cuffs, shouldrs, lapels and slits are ususally decorated with binding techniques. Pants are usually slim in black, coloured cloth are attached to the hem. If there’s an extra cloth at the crotch, it means the wearer is married. Silver balls headband and silver earrings, bangles and headscarf are the major accessories they wear. They would also wear hats which use black cloth as base and decorate it with silver balls.

3. Wenxi Style Wenxi style is usually seen in Wenshan, Xichou, Malipo, Funing of Yunnan province, as well as Napo of Guangxi province. Wenxi style remains the strong tradition of wearing one piece garment. Wax print and embroidery are used widely, Malipo people use a lot of wax print of dots patterned, which is delicate and exquisite; Funing and Napo people would do wax print of large geometric patterns, which is rough and decent. Women generally wear tops with buttons down to the front, medium or long pants, and long skirts. Decorations are quite plain. Young ladies from Malipo wear tops with hidden stripes, where shoulders, lapels, cuffs and hems are decorated with wax print patterns; Wax print skirt is decorated with triangle coloured cloth; Women from Pingbian wear waist-deep, small collared, right-lapeled tops, as well as navy pleated skirt and wide waistband.

Some women wear embroidered ribbons at the back, bow-shaped hair frame, covered with headscarf and decorated with flower ribbons, silver balls, seashells, beads, etc. which are colourful and vibrant; Old ladies from Napo wear several combs on the head as decoration, and they wear earrings too.

Mile style is popular in Mile, Bining, Yiliang, Luxi, Wenshan, Yanshan, Qiubei of Yunnan province.

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YI CLOTHING DIANXI STYLE Dianxi style can be found in Dali, Simao, Lincang, Baoshan in west Yunnan. Women’s tops are more or less the same with those from Diandongnan area. Most of them are large gowns with short front and long back, and people wear them to go with long pants, aprons and waistcoats. Womenswear from Weishan and Midu area is colourful and full of embroideries. People often wear embroidered cape with a plain and elegant style. They normally wear hair accessories, hats, navy headscarf, and decorated with multi-coloured beads and alike. So the whole look is pretty close to Nanzhao royal court’s gaudiness. Men often wear right-lapeled long gowns and wide pants, along with navy headscarf, waistbands or leather bellyband. According to regions, they are divided into Weishan style and Jingdong style.

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1. Weishan Style Weishan style is common in Weishan, Midu, Nanjian and some areas of Dali. Women wear round-collared gown with short front and long back, plus dark waistcoat and apron.

While women from Weishan and Midu who lives in the mountains wear embroidered “Zhan Li Bei�(a type of special braces) and flower patterned aprons; Women from Nanjian wear short tops and aprons, white shirts and blue pants, navy embroidered waistcoat and aprons.

Ladies from Weishan love to wear long braids and fishtail hats, while married women would wear buns and wrap headscarves, as well as multicoloured beads on special occasions.

Nanjian young ladies wear velvet flowers on occasions, while middleaged or old women wrap their heads with navy scarves. Both men and women from Nanjian like to wear sleeveless and buttonless fur coats, preferably in black and with long fur.

2. Jingdong Style Jingdong style is popular in Jingdong and Jinggu of Simao, Nanhua and Lincang of Chuxiong, as well as some part of Baoshan. Jingdong Yi women are fond of peach and green tops, black embroidered aprons. There are two kinds of headwear, women from Jingdong and Nanhua wear buns and headscarves, while on occasions they wear decorated silver balls headwear, with dozens of colourful ribbons on the back. Jinggu Yi ladies used to wear cockscomb hats, while married women wear black headscarves. Men often wear short tops with buttons down to the front, long pants, head scarves and mostly made of black cloth.

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TRADITIONAL FESTIVALS OF YI

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1. Torch Festival Torch Festival is Yi’s important event which is held on 24th lunar June. Lunar June is the season when most crops are nearly ripe, as well as the time when crops are in danger with pest problems, so on this festival, people would light the fire to get rid of pests in order to guarantee a great harvest. On this day, all men and women, old and young would wear occasional dresses and gather at a particular place to have bull-fighting, horse-racing, dancing competition and alike. At night, people will hold torches, play with each other, which symbolise luck and getting rid of evils. Besides, people hold torches to walk around residential areas and fields to get rid of pests, and then gather around for singing and dancing to late nights. Liangshan Yi has a long tradition of beauty contests. In the 1980s, Liangshan started to hold Yi International Torch Festivals; Since 1989, Liangshan began to hold Yi Beauty Contest, combining talent contest, singing and dance contest, fashion contest into one huge event. Its unique presentation and content are loved by all audience at home and abroad.

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2. Costume Contest Costume Contest is a fashion contest of Yi ladies, who are the designers, the producer and the model at the same time. This festival provides a great opportunity for boys and girls to know each other, or to express their love. Girls can show their beauty and talent by wearing their own designed clothes. Yi ladies’ clothes are made by handmade stitchcross work, embroidery and all sorts of traditional crafting techniques. Making a whole set needs one to two year, some even need three to four years. Therefore, the one who can make more and better clothes are deemed as the talented and intelligent.

3. Singing Contest Every lunar February has a ‘cow’ date, on this day, people would choose a flat place to sit in a circle by a bonfire and hold singing contests. As soon as the lusheng (a type of reed-pipe wind instrument) music starts, people would sing and dance inside the circle with the lusheng music.

One would lead to sing and others follow, audiences would

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clap hands to the rhythms too. After that, men and women would sing in antiphonal style, which is called “express love in public”. Men and women would sing and search their love ones and then walk away with holding hands. Those who fail to match would refuse with songs. Some brave young people would still keep standing to wait for new singing partners, and some will quit until they find their love ones, which is called “Zhi Zhuang”. At the end of the event, people would surround the couples and dance and sing till they are all exhausted.