Silver hairpins, hair shakes, hair clips, the head ornaments beloved by ancient women embellished Chinese civilization and were an indispensable part of traditional culture. With the change of Chinese women's hairstyles, traditional hairpins are fading away in life. However, with the spread of "Hanfu Fever", "Hanfu Shake", and elaborate costume dramas, the culture of ancient costumes has been brought to people's attention, and understanding them and appreciating them is like having a conversation with the ancients.
Hairpin: a symbol of etiquette
The importance of one's head and face has been a part of it since ancient times. As the ancients said, "The crown is the beginning of etiquette. The original name of the hairpin, "Matsu" (Shuowen: "Matsu, hairpin also."). It is a tool to tie the hair in ancient China. The Han way of hair, whether braided hair bun or bundle hair with a crown, must be fixed with hairpin constraints in ancient times. When a woman reaches the age of 15, she is a sign of adulthood, and a ceremony will be held to perform the "Maturity Ceremony". If a woman has been waiting to get married, she will also perform the "Maturity Ceremony" when she reaches 20 years of age. In ancient China, hairpins were also often used as tokens of love between men and women. When a man gave a woman a hairpin, he must have been very fond of her and gave her a hairpin to signify his desire to tie the knot.
In Bai Juyi's "Song of the Long Hatred", it is first mentioned that the token of love between Emperor Tang Ming Huang and Yang Guifei was a gold hairpin box. "The hairpin was left in a fan, and the hairpin was broken into gold and divided into inlays. Yang Guifei split the hairpin into two, one for herself and one for Tang Ming Huang. This practice was more common in ancient times. In ancient times, when people were engaged in love, they often held half of the same token to show their sincerity and commitment.
Flower crown: the heritage of culture
Since the Tang Dynasty, crowns have occupied an important place in women's hair ornaments. They were made in different shapes and patterns, showing the atmosphere of the prosperous world. The women of the Song Dynasty were concerned with practical simplicity and natural elegance. However, the importance of crown ornaments for women in the Song Dynasty was particularly dazzling, inheriting the residual charm of the Tang people.
About the crown of Song people, Shen Congwen once exclaimed: "(The hair bun is roughly developed from) the Tang Dynasty court female Taoist as a fairy dragon girl dress, and the flower crown and cloud bun of women in the Five Dynasties has become more and more dangerous and timid, and then developed and changed in the Song Dynasty, so a hundred flowers are competing on the head, and there is nothing strange.
Although the flower crown originated from the Tang Dynasty, however, the method and style of wearing flower crown between the two generations have apparent differences: the flower crown in the Tang Dynasty is like a hat on the head, up to the hairline, which we can find evidence from the "Palace Music" "tired embroidery". The Song Dynasty's flower crown was made of various kinds of flowers and made of materials such as Luo and silk and mainly was worn on top of the head. Magnolia bud flower crown, heavy floor flower crown, a year of flower crown are then more representative of the female flower crown.
In the Song tomb brick engraving of Jiuliu Gou in Yanshui, Henan Province, a woman wears a crown of magnolia buds, which is quite tall, solid in front and behind but false on the left and right, modelled after the magnolia flowers that are more open but not yet open, with smooth lines and beautiful simplicity. In "The Lady with Flowers and Stone", you can see the flower species "Shigarouzi", which is about two feet tall, and the height of the crown is about three times the length of the face. The crown is a combination of peach, apricot, lotus, plum, and chrysanthemum flowers from all seasons of the year. These small bionic flowers are placed on the crown richly and beautifully without being gaudy, and they are popular among women because they convey the wish for a good year and a better year.
Headdress: the charm of aesthetics
By the Northern Song Dynasty, various crown ornaments were coming out and dazzling, and women were not decent enough to go out without wearing a crown. During the Northern Song Dynasty, Kaifeng City was the distribution centre of national commodities. There were small stalls selling head ornaments everywhere outside Song Gate, outside Liang Gate and Fengqiu Gate in the first month. It can be seen how great the demand in Bianjing City was.
During Song Emperor Renzong, noblewomen also fashioned such a vast size crown as a white horn crown. Initially, the crown was made of bamboo gabions and painted green, named after the group's shape, but later it was changed to white horn (one says white horn is white cow horn). The white horn crown was just famous for a while, and Emperor Renzong thought it was too extravagant and gave an explicit order to ban it. However, after Emperor Ren Zong's death, the strength of the mandate was significantly reduced, and beauty-loving women began to rebound with a vengeance. The white horn crown continued to be at the forefront of popularity. According to "Tokyo Menghualu", during the reign of Emperor Huizong of Song Dynasty, there were "brushing the belt, repairing the turban head and hat, and mending and washing the horned crown" among the miscellaneous sales of all colours, which shows the popularity of horn crown, and even mending the horned crown became a trade.
Not only did it continue to be popular, but the crown also became more extravagant. White horn crown is not senior enough to be replaced by fish pillow crown (made of green fish skull grinding), the crown inserted white horn comb grade is not enough to upgrade to ivory, tortoiseshell, peacock feathers. Water Margin" in the twenty-ninth round, Jiang Menshin first to Mengzhou new concubine "crown small, bright pave fish skirt, cover the dark clouds. Fishbones are fish skulls, so Jiang Menshin's concubine should be wearing a fishbone.
Su Shi, a great writer, also liked to follow the fashion and wrote "Ode to the Fish Pillow Crown". During the Southern Song Dynasty, it was recorded in the Mengliang Lu that fish pillow crowns and deer fetus crowns were sold in Lin'an County. According to Hong Mai "Yi Jian Zhi" records, a fish pillow crown from the Northern Song Dynasty to the Southern Song Dynasty has been circulating and is quite popular; you can buy a market.
There are also traditional hair ornaments, flowers, butterflies, moths and bees made of silk and gold foil paper. Here we have to mention the headdress maniac Li Qingzhao, when she was young, shopping for the Lantern Festival, what kind of dress is: "laying the emerald crown child, twist gold snow willow, cluster with the struggle Ji Chu". The emerald crown is peacock hair; snow willow is a paper wicker headdress full of headwear, which can be a huge visual impact.
Pursuit: Echoes of history
The "drunkenness" adds to the charm. The development of any dynasty does not exist in isolation but is inextricably linked to all aspects of the previous generation, which is even more evident in the female headdress.
Ancient hairpins were available in various forms, including stone, bamboo, mussel, jade, jadeite, bone, copper, silver and gold hairpins, from materials alone. The hairpins inherited from past generations are very rich in style. Their variations are mainly concentrated on the head of the hairpin, which is a combination of the ancients' aesthetic design and thousands of years of cultural precipitation.
Ancient women's crowns were colourful and varied in style, and old headgear reflected the time's ideology and lifestyle. It is elegant and secular; it is historical and modern—these hairpins, filled with the essence of traditional Chinese culture and aesthetic interest. A long time ago, long become obsolete ancient hair ornaments can still infect us because they show the vivid charm, exquisite skills, and a wide range of content, awe-inspiring, bring modern thinking, enlightenment and inspiration.
