Catalogue
Chapter 1Chinese and western dress (1)
1.1 The different features of Chinese and western dress (1) 1.2 Why people wear clothing (2) 1.2.1 The functional reason (3) 1.2.2 The social reason (3)
Chapter 2 Cultural differences between Chinese and western clothing (3)
2.1 D esign (3) 2.2 Color (4)
2.3 Pattern and ornaments (5) 2.4 Material (5)
Chapter 3 An analysis of Chinese and western dress culture (9)
3.1 Geographical environment (9) 3.2 The historical reason (9) 3.3 The p olitical reason (10)
Chapter 4 Chinese and western dress aesthetic culture and dress concept (12)
4.1 Dress aesthetic culture (12) 4.2 Dress concept (13)
Abstract:Dress culture is a cultural phenomenon unique to human beings. As it has
different aesthetic ideas, different dressing concepts and different dress etiquette in China and west, it forms Chinese and western dress culture of the different connotation and characteristics. This thesis is divided into four major sections. The first part describes the different features of Chinese and western
dress and why people wear clothing. The second part describes cultural differences between Chinese and western clothing. The third part gives an analysis of Chinese and western dress culture. The last part describes Chinese and western dress aesthetic culture and dress concept. Based on the analysis, the thesis finally draws a conclusion. Chinese and western dress culture each has rich connotation and distinct characteristics, which are precious cultural legacy which is left by human ancestors and are the world culture heritage. At the same time, we treasure our own civilization of five thousand years instead of belittling ourselves. It is significant to promote and develop our unique costume culture. We are confident and make contributions to realizing the rejuvenation of our Chinese nation and enriching the clothing culture of the whole world. Key words:Chinese and western clothing; culture；differences；aesthetic culture and clothing concepts
摘要:服饰文化是人类特有的文化现象。由于中西方各民族的审美观念、着装理念和服饰礼仪的不同，从而形成了不同内涵、不同特色的中西方服饰文化。本文共分为四部分。第一部分主要介绍了中西服饰的不同特征以及为什么人要穿衣服，第二部分写中西方服饰的差异，第三部分写导致中西方服饰文化差异的原因，第四部分则写中西方服饰审美文化和着装理念。通过以上简单的论述，最后得出结论，中西方服饰文化各具有丰富的内涵和鲜明的特色，她们都是人类祖先留下来的宝贵文化遗产 ,是世界文化的瑰宝。与此同时,我们应该珍惜自己五千年的文明而不是贬低自己的文明。促进和发展我们独特的民族服饰文化具有重要的意义。为了实现我们中华民族的文化复兴和丰富整个世界的文化，让我们自信起来吧！
关键词:中西服饰；文化；差异性；审美文化与着装理念 Introduction
Costume culture, carried by costume, is a respect of our
physical and spiritual life and a mixture of our psychological activities like consciousness, emotion, idea and ideal. The rapid development of advanced technology makes multiculturalism stand out and also makes conflicts between China and the West increase. In that case, it becomes more and more important to recognize the similarities and differences of costume culture between China and the West.
Nowadays, the whole world is, to some extent, dominated by the western costume culture, which has wound its way into the daily life of the whole world, together with technology, life style and values from the West. Quite popular in China, it’s nominally called“internationalization”or “globalization”. In recent years, the costume industry of China has developed swiftly. The “international” costume, featured by the western costume culture, has become a pretty important part of our daily life.
However, as our economy takes off, international status rises and living standard improves, a wave of national costume culture resurgence is rising. Moreover, people from the West pay more and more attention to the giant dragon in the East——China. Western costume designers constantly introduce Chinese costume cultural elements to their latest designs. Those phenomena arouse a series of thoughts: what distinguishes Chinese costume culture from the western one? Are there any similarities between them? What kind of costume culture will we Chinese hold as the mainstream in the future, the so-called “international” western one, the Chinese one or the fus ion of the two? To obtain the answers to these questions, we are supposed to study and contrast carefully the characteristics and developing processes of them, and then draw some regularity.
To contrast the costume culture between China and the West,
it is necessary for us to master a good knowledge of the Chinese and western costume cultural characteristics.
Chapter 1 Chinese and western dress
1.1 The different features of Chinese and western dress China is known as “Xia” as it’s a land of propriety, and it’s also known as “Hua” with the beauty of its costume. (①《左传》p83) Our national costume is Hanfu. It originated in the Yanhuang era, formed in the Spring and Autumn Period and officially took form in Han Dynasty. That’s the reason why it’s called “Hanfu”. Since then, in spite of historical evolutions of all ages, their basic characteristics have never changed. Hanfu, on the whole, can be divided into four developing stages: Zhou Han Hanfu, Wei Jin Hanfu, Sui Tang Hanfu and Song Ming Hanfu. Zhou Han Hanfu was featured by dignity and simplicity, while Wei Jin Hanfu by chic and elegance, Sui Tang Hanfu by dignified, graceful, elegant and poised style. Hanfu in Song and Ming Dynasties epitomizes the characteristics of the past-simple, dignified, elegant, etc. In Qing Dynasty, Hanfu was forbidden by the government and disappeared from the land of China.
The main features of Chinese clothing are focusing on the right collar’s overlap, the band deducted hidden, big sleeves, no buttons and using string binding, giving the impression of free and easy flowing. These characteristics are obviously different from those of other ethnic costumes. Hanfu is divided into uniform and common clothing. With strict standards, uniform is dressed on formal occasions while the common clothing, without long sleeves, is very convenient to people’s daily life.
However, the western clothing is different form the Chinese clothing. The West belongs to Marine civilization, it emphasizes
the subjective and objective separation and that we should rationally treat clothing, advocate releasing personality, stress dress effect and be good at showing beautiful the posture of the body. Besides, we use various clipping, color collocation means to perfect bodily curve and give a person with visual comfort in the modeling.
A suit, also known as a business suit, comprises a collection of matching clothing consisting of: a coat﹙commonly known as a jacket﹚,a waistcoat ﹙optional﹚﹙USA vest﹚for men, a pair of trousers﹙USA pants﹚, or for women, a shirt or trousers. A suit is generally accompanied by torment, a shirt and tie or for women, a blouse.
1.2 Why people wear clothing
Chinese people are concerned more about its social function of helping to rule a country well than that of keeping warm or decorating. It has a lot to do with ruling a country to regulate the dressing way of the common people. Nevertheless, the westerners pay more attention to its wealth value and function. Therefore, people put on clothing for functional and social reasons.
1.2.1 The functional reason
The first use of clothing is to resist the cold and cover the body. Functions of clothing include providing the human body protection against extremes of climate (extreme heat, icy winters, and drenching storms) and protection against insects, noxious, chemicals, and contact with abrasive substances. In sum, clothing protects human beings against anything that might injure the naked, unprotected human body.
1.2.2 The social reason
Clothing also delivers social messages to other humans.
Social messages sent by clothing, accessories, and decorations can involve social status, occupation, ethnic and religious belief, marital status, cultural degree and sexual availability, etc. For example, only Roman citizens can wear “Toga” in Rome while dragon robe can only be dressed by the emperor in China.
Chapter 2 Cultural differences between Chinese and western clothing
As the saying goes：\"People rely on apparel, beauty relies on good make-up\". This is the same between China and the West, but for the specific performance - it will be different.
Chinese clothing culture differs from western clothing culture in the following aspects.
2.1 Design
The Chinese style is decided by the unique Chinese culture and the Oriental body feature. As the cu rve of we yellow race’s body is not so obvious, and Chinese are fastidious about self-respect, implicitly and the doctrine of the mean, our clothing is a straight overall with wide coat and fat sleeves, which emphasizes plane design. Men’s wear is a one-piece robe while women’s wear is a short Chinese-style jacket and a long skirt. The western style is determined by the western aesthetic thought of pragmatism and nationalism and the white race’s body structure. Their body curve is pretty sharp. Stressing scientific nature, the western clothing is in keeping with the law of motion. Its semi-stereoscopic designed with muffs, puckers, etc. Besides, it advocates individuality and physical beauty. Various kinds of designs sharply revealed the body line. Men wear a suit of coat and trousers while women wear a one-piece dress. In a word, Chinese costume culture is a “covering” one while the western one is a “revealing” one.
2.2 Color
Chinese clothing color lays particular stress on ethic and asks for maintaining social order, but western-style clothing color lays particular stress on emotion and pays attention to psychological adjustment. The most important factor is the color element of clothing. Clothing color falls into two colors which are the pure color and the secondary color in ancient China. The pure color is blue, yellow, red, white and black, the other colors are secondary color, and it provides that: ＂The upper garment is the pure color, the under garment is the secondary color.＂(②《礼记·玉藻》) Darker colors were favored over lighter ones in traditional Chinese clothing, so the main color of ceremonial clothing tended to be dark while bright. Lighter colored clothing was worn more frequently by the common people for everyday. Chinese are
said to have a fully developed system of matching, coordinating colors and shades of light and dark in clothing.
People in ancient China also use different colors of clothing to distinguish people’s identity. The black color was regarded as the one of the Celestial Ruler Supreme God to rule everything. So in the Xia Shang and Zhou Dynasty, the clothing was mainly black. With the development of the feudal Unitarianism, people began to adore the ground (yellow) instead of god (black). So it formed the rulers in ancient China believed in the theory of “Five Element”. They though the blue, red yellow, white and black represented respectively five elements of the wood, fire, earth, gold and water. “Yellow, regarded as the noblest, symbolized the east；red, the south；white，the west; and black, the north. These five colors were “principal colors,” and in some dynasties were exclusive to the garment of emperors and officials,
Common people were allowed to wear only secondary colors.”(③Zhi 73) This system of clothing colors had lasted to the Qing Dynasty and the yellow robe had been the symbol of imperial power all the time. The red color is regarded as an auspicious color. While having a happy event, such as wedding, the bride and bridegroom will wear red clothes and shoes in ancient China to show their happy feelings and wishes for good luck. Today Chinese people still tend to choose red color on happy occasion.
However, in the western countries, the red color is too showy to be sexy. The white and purple are more popular. White symbolizes purity, innocence and justice, purple means nobility. At weddings, the bride will wear white wedding grown to symbolize her purity and nobility. In the medieval period, the colorful windows of the unique church were decorated splendidly to guide people to the heaven. So the designs with religious colors are adored. Jesus teaches in a blue garment, and the Virgin Mary is usually depicted in a blue mantle. So, blue is considered as the color for the spirit and the intelligent. It is loved by many western people.
2.3 Pattern and ornaments
The former emphasizes color matching, pattern design, the effect of embroidery and the change of the clothing’s front piece, collar, sleeves, and buckles and so on. Representing the Chinese writers’ideal spirits, plum blossom, orchid, and chrysanthemum and pine tree can be commonly seen on
Chinese clothing. Among all ornaments, the jade is the most popular one. However, the latter pays more attention to the lace and embroidery of the neck, chest and sleeves. The patterns are mostly regular pomegranate grains and water chestnut lines. Its
layout is symmetrical, modeling full and colors gorgeous. The female attire is usually decorated with jewelry like pearls and diamonds. Besides, the hat and gloves are indispensable ornaments. For men,
a hat and a walking stick are enough. 2.4 Material
The relationship of human to nature is also reflected in the choice of the materials. During the Stone Age, Chinese invented the bone awl and the bone needle and created primitive clothing with the aid of these tools. Approximately 5000 years ago, China was in the Neolithic Primitive agriculture and the textiles industry. At first people use plant fiber, such as linen, ramie, etc., and animal fibers, such as wool to weave. Later they discovered how to raise the silk worn and spin silk, and the pure silk clothes were liked by many Chinese people, especially the wealthy. It is a symbol of their social status. Silk is a great contribution to human life from Chinese people, so it is impossible to talk Chinese clothing culture without silk.
Different from silk culture in China, flax culture prevails in ancient Egypt, wool culture prevails in the Mesopotamia and cotton culture prevails in India. Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome have no pioneering work in materials, and they imports flax and wool cultures from Mediterranean coasts and Upper Paleozoic civilizations. As for silk, although ancient Rome has touched silk from Far East through Silk Road in 138 BC, they were never able to understand the mysteries of this beautiful fabric. Lately, they known the secrets of silk from two missionaries send to China by the Byzantine Empire. Then one century later, the first silk is produced in Byzantine Empire, but Europeans produced first silk until the Italian Renaissance in 13-14 century.
In a word, Chinese clothing prefers silk, cotton, linen and co-hemp while the western one tends to use flax, wool, cotton and velvet. The silk is one of the contributions China has made to the world. “W e westerners have received too much from the Chinese.” (④法国服装设计师伊夫·圣·洛朗，中国美术馆举办作品回顾展时的前言，1985年5月﹚The former adopts basting, hand needle and patch while the latter pays more attention to adapting to clothing’s
function in sewing craft. 2.5 Structure and Modeling
“The elegant line depends primarily on the structure of purity and refinement.”（⑤Yves Saint Laurent）It reflects that the structure is very important for clothing. The structure of Chinese-style costume is completely planar, straight and comfortable. However, the structure of Western-style dress is stereo split type and suitable the body.
Chinese and western dress is designed by different body posture. So it forms different structure. From the system of ancient deep clothing, traditional Chinese clothing had adopted the structure of human body that opened his hand flat and split his legs lightly. Therefore, the tailored clothing is straight line, whole chip and flat-screen. It is straight and comfortable, simple and handy and also good for work. Dressed in Chinese-style costume, you may fell very convenient. The structure of Chinese clothing feature is that there is no shoulder seam on the shoulder, a thread links the front dress to the back garment and even sleeves are also out of the body. If the width of fabric is not wide enough, then add sleevelet at both sides of the sleeves. So there is no “outside sleeve” in Chinese-style clothing. That word is replaced by “chu shou” which are starting from the middle of
the body to the size of the palm. According to the measurement of western-style clothes, the size of “chu shou”including two parts data that half shoulder and the length of upper limb. Because western-style clothing emphasizes that it fits body type and thus the structure of clothing is more complex. It designs collar, clothing, sleeves, trouser legs and other main parts with some of its subsidiary, constitutes the whole clothing and pants by the body structure's trunk, upper and lower limbs in all parts. While each of the major components is in accordance with the body contour's length, short and thickness, composes irregularly tubular form and so on. Such as the coarse chest circumference, hipline and smaller waistline, smaller collars, clothing constitutes irregularly tubular body and ring-shaped collar. Western clothing is a fragmented, curve-shaped, three-dimensional clothing, its most notable feature is the shoulder seam, sleeves, the front of clothing and the back of garment are separate, the whole garment is consist of many pieces of garments . And the outline of the garment is the arc-shaped or curve-shaped, as for coat, its chest circumference
is loose, waistline is folded, hipline is release, and shoulders are oblique. The whole garment sculpt is full of curve shape, which is undulating and three-dimensional structure, and completely compatible with the human body. The structure of Western-style pants is completely different from Chinese-style pants. The waist of Western-style pants is tight, when you wear trousers, you should open the front, rear or side, and otherwise you don't wear them. Pants are split into four pieces on all sides, both sides of pants legs stitch seam, the outlines of pants legs are designed according to the shape of hips and thighs, the upside is large and round, the underneath is narrower and
slightly straight. The back part of pants is big, but the front part is small. The appropriate level of Western-style trousers almost wraps a material outside the body, which shows the curve of human body. The structure is very fit, so western-style trousers are not wearing before and after.
Chinese clothing modeling is closed and implicative, western clothing modeling is open and revealed. Some people also regard clothing modeling as dress design or style. In fact, modeling and style have connections and differences. Generally speaking, modeling refers to the contour of clothing, which is a big picture, such as the popularly loose H-type or tight-fitting X-type. At present, Chinese people often mix the clothing modeling and clothing style. It is the shape of clothing design, but also the combination of clothing inside sew and the decoration of detail. Traditional Chinese costumes ask the human body to be tightly wrapped by the closely collar, wide clothing, long sleeves and pants, skirts, and it seems like a pocket, the human body is inside. It is extremely closed, conservative and dull. For thousands of years, if it is not up and down separate \"clothing system\connected from top to bottom \"deep clothing system\". Whether man's robes, or woman's skirts, legs are always wrapped by leather gear, long clothing drags to the ground and inside and outside of clothes are overlapping, these are commonly referred to as “triple clothing” or “Five clothing.\"
As western dress concept advocates revealing the human body, focusing on self-expression, and shows off the beauty of its own. Consequently, in terms of clothing style, it becomes open, revealing and varied. All types of bare, open styles are still the mainstream of western-style clothing, all kinds of large collar, V-neck, short sleeve and waistcoat sleeves are frequently used.
Women are fond of choosing those thin and transparent materials which are graceful and elegant，beautifully wrought. When wearing them, as if your body is wrapped by gauzes, and you are wonderful and charming. Western-style modeling is particular about nudity besides concealment. They have a variety of wrap-style clothing, but their clothing is different from Chinese clothing. Tight western-style clothing is the style of three-dimensional and narrow, clothing closes to the human body, can absolutely show the bodily curves and can fully reveal the beauty of human body. As Lu Xun said: ＂The concealment is sometimes more attractive than the nudity, it is concealment and stimulation, concealment and obstacles will have the wonderful and unpredictable psychological effect.＂So western-style dress modeling belongs to two forms of the same subject.
Chapter 3 An analysis of Chinese and western dress culture 3.1 Geographical environment
The geographical environment is one of the main reasons why these differences are formed. As we all known, western civilization originates from the Aegean Sea. But, the main development is in the Mediterranean region, thus western civilization is also called as Marine civilization. This determines the westerners’ export-oriented character: open, active and the curiosity of the outside world. Performance in the clothing is making widely known, seek strong effect. In contrast, the Chinese geographical environment is closed: The outside of east coastline without near continent and large islands, therefore, it hardly goes to sea. West and Eurasian area is almost cut by mountains, the Pamir’s and the Tibet plateau which is called the roof of the world, the only Silk Road also need pass through desolate desert and big Gobi Desert. So, it is extremely difficult for ancient
Chinese people whose transport is underdeveloped to walk out. In addition, China itself has vast territory and abundant natural resources, It is not necessary to go out. This creates Chinese introverted personality. It reflects in the garment is implicit and does not appear, the human body is hidden in clothing.
3.2 The historical reason
Speaking from the historical reasons, if we took the whole European as a large group, it should turn into a history of conquests and dominations between nations as well as peoples. When a nation is powerful and occupies dominant position, its culture and reflecting the dress of the culture will have an affect on the other peoples and nations. For instance, Spain was unprecedented in the 16th century. The Spanish government implements the clothing of Spanish style, and the most typical dress is Raff collar, corselet and bustle. And both men and women add a lot of filler in clothes to model a stiff and mechanical appearance, it is beginning with Spain that men’s clothing advocates black. British began industrial revolution in the 17th century, making its men’s clothing the earliest towards the modernized direction of development. Since then, British men's clothing has been regarded as a classic. In contrast, the development of Chinese history is basically a vertical development of the various dynasties, little change in territory. This determines the traditional Chinese clothing is not too much
change, although absorbing Minority costumes in the history, the dominant position is always Han clothing and culture, even as the Qing Dynasty which forces implementation of the Manchu clothing with the power of the government, but in fact, Manchu is ultimately the same as Chinese in political culture, so the Han clothing culture is derived from the same origin, it is historical
continuity and it decides that Chinese clothing could not have happened very unexpected change.
3.3 The political reason
Speaking from the political reasons, most of China's history is in a state of unity, it begins with one person who rules the world from the Yellow emperor. The unified thoughts follow China for two thousand years, and kings in the past dynasties constantly reinforce this thinking. This unity incarnates all aspects, but the most essential is the ideological and cultural unity and the unity of the concept. The biggest role of clothing is to distinguish the class in ancient China, people of each class have agency in fashion and clothing is given strong political and theoretical colors, even the aristocracy would not easily make changes to the dress, because it may touch on moral and ethical issues.
Westerners take themselves as masters of the world and the ruler of the world. They are self-centered, make every effort to tap into the power of people, release human potential, advocate hard competition and make desires expand. They strongly express individuality in dress and emphasize the beauty of the exaggerated human body. To varying degrees, they violate the course of nature.
In addition, our ancestors created profound loose garment culture, forming a unique aesthetic and philosophical concept. However, the West is entirely different, Oriental and other nationalities are also difference. Thus, it shows the air of a Chinese style and charm in the women's loose garment modeling, giving it national inherent soul of spirit and culture. It embodies the Chinese female tolerance, natural and simple personality realm and moral cultivation, as well as graceful and virtuous, implicative and inner, soft and just, halcyon charm and
temperament, the color of individual character. People and clothing, man and nature, clothing and natural relationship is harmonious, without conflict. Clothing does not bind or harm the body, and
people should not undermine the laws of nature. It pursues naturally cover human body in the clothing, not to show off for the purpose of self-publicity, not want only perform individuality. When you wear the loose clothing, you will spontaneously feel a casual pleasure, comfort and ease. What’s more, it gives expression to put you into the natural realm.
Chapter 4 Chinese and western dress aesthetic culture and dress concept
4.1 Dress aesthetic culture
From the subject sense, \"aesthetic culture\" refers to the cultural part of the human society which establishes or is some beauty and aesthetics. There are many differences between Chinese and western dress aesthetic culture. “If the Oriental art inspiration is from landscape, westerners’ consciousness inspiration will be from the human body.”(⑥《美学百科》) The partition of historical culture has existed in myth and legend of the early human. About the origin of mankind, it is the creation of the world by Pan Gu in our myths and legends. This myth reflects a kind of simple nature in Chinese ancient: The human beings and the world have the same source and man is part of the world. Therefore, man and nature is not opposite, but in harmony. The most famous is the Bible “genesis” in the western legends of human origin, which reflects the western view of the world: Although man and nature are created by God, the relationship between man and nature are opposites. God creates the nature, which is for people. People are not part of nature, but
natural managers and dominator. There are many differences between Chinese and western dress aesthetic culture.
1. Western culture originated in Marine civilization, cultural instinct is more open and easy to fuse outland costume culture. Chinese culture originated in mainland civilization, cultural instinct is more closed. It has stubborn \"the original body\" consciousness in the clothing. Traditional costume forms stable position for thousands of years, it is relatively difficult to absorb foreign clothing.
2. Western culture is good at expressing contradiction and conflict, which emphasizes stimulation and extreme form in apparel structure. Chinese culture is a harmonious culture, which emphasizes the equilibrium, symmetry and unified costume modeling method. It is beautiful for rule and stable.
3. Western culture is a simile culture, which lays stress on modeling, line, design and color with visual comfortable for the first. Chinese culture is a metaphor culture, whose art lays stress on lyricism. It pursues the spiritual implication and cultural grade of the clothing inscape.
4. Western culture advocates the beauty of human body, which takes
seriously to show human sexual difference. It does not taboo on performing sexy. Classical mode is a performance of secondary sex characteristics, women like the nude neck, nude shoulder, scoop-back and half chest. It displays the bodily curve of female with tightening waistline and filling up buttock. Modern model shows the body's natural shape through the contracted form and shows modern fashion through short, nude and tight.
5. Chinese culture disregards the existence of \"sexhe
clothing does not manifest bodily curve, which don’t have a sensual elements. The clothing is wide and covers with human body, which expresses is a grave, implicit beauty.
The aesthetic characteristics of Chinese clothing reflect the Chinese nation's aesthetic mentality and cultural characteristics. Chinese people pay attention to combine emotion with reason and pursuit leisure, moderation and ordinary, which pursue the spiritual implication.
4.2 Dress concept
There are obvious differences on dress concepts between Chinese and Western people. Influenced by Confucian thought and Ethical Function, Chinese people have always maintained an eastern style conservative. Skin is closely covered and concealed. To some extent, Chinese clothing culture is a kind of \"cover\" culture. People should not \"reveal\" body shape and even skin.
A large space is maintained between clothing and the body. This kept clothing relative stable in change on form, but to develop more surface decoration, patterns, colors, material textures and decoration styles. These developments have always kept Chinese clothing in strict form, except for some Men's clothing (such as \"Bamboo Seven\" in Wei and Jin Dynasties).
It is different in western culture, except for a period when people are influenced by the Christianity. Denied the existence of human and human body's performance, Western clothing was used to present body shape in a very realistic and even exaggerated way. This is reflected both in ancient \"loose clothing\" culture and \"close-fitting clothing\" culture since the Renaissance. Clothing has been used to “stand out” and even “intensify” different sex characteristics between male and female, and skin were more and more exposed (especially for
women’s clothing). They have also foun d some methods to “further expose” skin. This brought many profile changes
and man-made structure to Western clothing.
In traditional Chinese society and family education, the code of conduct of clothing is regarded as an important content of cultivate one's moral character and influences Chinese clothing life for a long time. In order to achieve the Confucian moral requirement, people pay attention to ethics contents in dressing, cover up the human body with clothing and beyond the limitations of human body. Dress beauty pays attention to show personal spirit, temperament and verve, which does not emphasize form. Even though form is very beautiful, clothing wouldn't have to reveal its beauty, it is endowed with human body outside of a spiritual implication with all sorts of artistic means. Chinese dress culture belongs to the category of unary culture, which has the whole and similar conception. It makes the people who dress emphasize group consciousness and don't pay attention to the personal effect. Therefore, it has the inner, introversive and connotative characteristics. In the rule of apparel structure, Chinese dress embodies harmonious, symmetrical and unified expression means and clothing is dignified and balanceable. Clothing material pursue elegance and peace, clothing color is refreshing and elegant, downy contrast, dress pattern is fine and exquisite, and it likes beautiful brush painting. Clothing aesthetic contains strong \"goodness\" content. Chinese clothing expresses abstract beauty by specific things, intension is still ethical spirit meaning. Western dress cultural characteristics is advocating human body beauty services, the function of clothing lies in fully displaying the aesthetic feeling of human body and makes up the defect of human body. Pursuing the
beauty of human body is the core of the garment concept, which shows explicit and extroverted characteristic. Western dress culture belongs to the category of diversification, one of the most striking features is clothing protrudes personality and shows individual character.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it’s inevitable to have differences between the Chinese costume culture and the western one, as they had been developed in a situation almost cutting off from each other before twentieth century. However, they have something in common as well, since they are components of the human culture.
Nowadays,
economic
globalization,
political
multi-polarization and cultural diversity co-exist. It is necessary for us to absorb the advanced technology and cultural qualities. At the same time, it is very important for us treasure our own civilization of five thousand years instead of belittling ourselves. It is significant to promote and develop our unique costume culture. We are confident and make contributions to realizing the rejuvenation of our Chinese nation and enriching the clothing culture of the whole world.
Notes ①《左传》p83 ②《礼记·玉藻》 ③Zhi 73
④法国服装设计师伊夫·圣·洛朗，中国美术馆举办作品回顾展时的前言，
1985年5月
⑤Yves Saint Laurent ⑥《美学百科》
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