Creation of costumes is an important hallmark of human civilization and the history of costume culture is closely linked with human activities. The formation of each type of costumes springs from the life of that nationality and reflects their living environment, lifestyles, customs and even ideology and religious beliefs, bearing the characteristics and features of that certain nationality.
Ethnic costumes along the Silk Road have a long and brilliant history, recording the vicissitudes and congealing the soul and spirit of different ethnic groups. The well-balanced colors, unique styles and gorgeous and elegant patterns not only give costumes a sense of flowing but also demonstrate the unique aesthetic taste of each ethnic group and an intense ethnic style, constituting an important part of Chinese costumes. Due to the mutual assimilation and penetration between different ethnic groups, ethnic costumes bear a wide range of features and diverse elements, presenting a complete picture of the life of different ethnic groups along the Silk Road.
To trace the development track of costume culture, the author of the Silk Road Studies·Costumes had made many field trips along the ancient Silk Road, leaving the footprints both north and south of the Tianshan Mountains, and collected large numbers of costume relics and made a detailed comparative analysis and research about the features, styles, patterns and colors of ethnic costumes on the basis of physical materials collected.
The author divided the book into six parts according to historical periods, namely, costumes in Western Regions during the Pre-Qin Period, the Han Dynasty, the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, Sui and Tang Dynasties, Five Dynasties, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, as well as costumes in Xinjiang region in modern times. The author made a detailed description of cultural patterns of costumes and their relations with material progress, interrelationship between changes of costumes and culture, the status of costumes in folk customs of each ethnic group, and the relationship between clothing and ideology and aesthetic tastes. The author tries to give an all-round introduction to the readers, from the perspective of archeology, folklore, religion, history, sociology and other disciplines, the sequence of cultural changes in creation and development of ethnic costumes along the Silk Road for thousands of years.
Following the trend of the picture-reading era, the book selected nearly 600 costume-related exquisite pictures, copies and paintings of different ethnic groups in different periods, creating a visual representation and vividness that can help expand the readers’ thinking space and imagination. The rich pictures in this book can rarely be seen from other similar books.
The Silk Road is an important connecting link between Eastern and Western cultures, the emergence of ethnic costumes results from the exchanges and integration between the two cultures. This book expounds the historic and gradual changes in cultural exchanges along the Silk Road from the perspective of costumes. The publication of the book offers experiences and ideas for reference in research into costumes along the Silk Road.(By De Li ) |
