The Miao Clothing - Essay Example

The Miao Clothing Introduction People continue to deal with fashion everyday in their lives since the ancient days. This covers among others those believing that what they wear does not bother them most of the time. They choose what to wear everyday they get out of bed. Clothing is an element of fashion that constitutes a language. It tells a story of an individual wearing the particular type of clothing. The societies as well as people within continue to use clothes in addition to other adornment as a component of nonverbal communication representing rank, profession, occupation, sexual availability, gender, class, status, locality, group interaction, as well as wealth. Clothing is a type of free speech. It entails among other things jewellery, accessories, beauty, hairstyles, and body art such as tattoos. Clothing put on by people and how they put them on offers other individuals the shortest way to understand their literal social circumstance. The type of clothes worn by people identifies the specific roles associated with them in the society. The Language Aspect Scholars posit that communication means much more than writing and speech. People communicate in many different aspects without uttering a single word. This aspect appears in other social animals as well. Clothing is an auxiliary aspect of communication referred to by linguistics as paralanguage. The society discovered the use of cloth more than nine thousand years ago. Since then, it remains an essential part of humanity. In this case, adornment and clothing represents communication of different variations and self-awareness within the social strata (Phelan, 1993, 21). This explains why authors including poets as well as anthropologists use clothes as metaphor in the society. It is important for clothing to rhyme with the body of the wearer to create fashion because fashion is additional component of body language. Most people concur that a new piece of clothing develops a new attitude, which in turn adds a new posture to the wearer. The Miao Clothing According to the last census by the government of China, the people of Miao total to almost nine million of the Chinese population. The sequence of these people remains consistent for the last five thousand years. The culture of the people of Miao constitutes among others rich historical legends. In many ways, some of their clothing forms part of the traditional Chinese clothes. In general, they wear silk and traditional animal skins in other functions. Miao clothing did not just transform radically in the same way traditional Chinese clothes did but also evolved over time and through various political regimes (Aaron, 1996, 43). The community of the Miao dressed differently according to their position in the society as well as ranks. It was easy to distinguish an ordinary Miao from a member of the ruling class. Men wear trousers and short coats and women use dazzling and dainty skirts as well as jewels to decorate their bodies. The skirts have different patterns that take variant themes from the daily activities including birds and flowers. The most attractive skirts have pleats with forty layers. (Warr, 2000, 70) (Warr, 2000, 71) The Miao community comprises one of the biggest minority ethnic communities in China with clothes of diverse regions. The Miao wear festive clothes during their festivals, weddings, sacrificial rituals, and other gorgeous ceremonies where they dress in magnificent clothes. They also refer to their wedding clothing as floral dresses. The tradition splits the Miao festive clothing into those for men and the others for women. The festive dresses have blazing colors and with national flavors. The community uses the silk, white gunny, and cotton for fabric (Forrest, 1948, 31). The techniques of processing include rustic and simple dip dyeing, ingenious embroidery, and wax printing. Miao people also embed shinning silver ornaments and bright colors in all the festive clothes made using processed fabric. All types of living things guide the motifs on traditional festive dresses among the Miao in China. Most patterns on festive dresses are conspicuous and appear in many colors containing a hitherto plastic influence. This arrangement plays a significant role of representing nationality as well as ideography besides serving as a way of identifying language and clan for different people (Seremetakis, 1994, 57). The clothes of the people of Miao are exquisite. The exemplary nature of the same clothes puts them as the first of the fifty-six ethnic communities in China regarding artistic standards of clothes. This led to the dubbing of the clothes, ‘a history book put on the body.’ The clothes of the Miao stand as representatives of the culture of minority Chinese. The ceremonious clothes are precious components of the Chinese ethnic embroidery work of art because they have quality cultural values as well as artistic relevance. The clothing of these people has more than thirty distinct styles that cut across diverse regions, dialects, and social-cultural influences. Common colors and styles among different Miao dialects include red, white, black, green, striped, and white among many more. The Miao used thread to communicate with the rest of the world because traditionally, they lived without a written language. The fabric remains symbolic of their traditional textiles of Southern China where they lived. This clothing talks more about the ancestors, myths, spirits, ethnic identity, wealth, artistic strength, and culture of the Mio people. The prowess of the women who created the festive clothes is clear in their style. Clothes worn by Miao express hitherto stories that burst with evocative representations. The fireworks come out in cotton, silk, wool, as well as hemp with clarity beyond what worlds would express. The Miao people have different names of groups that they differentiate their clothes into including Long Horn Miao, Big flower Miao, and white Miao consisting of groups that apply a more white color compared to others who frequently use indigo (Marks, 2000, 67). The women of Miao have plain and impressive designs. They have various layers with five upper divisions coming successively with flared tiers. The design is shiny and crispy made by crushing the fabric mixed with a white egg or in other circumstances, blood from animals. A Dong musician on the other hand, wears a one piece-de-resistance ensemble. The musician performs during the Lusheng festival. It is not easy to compare this type of design with Elvis because of opulence from the piece-de-resistance ensemble. Evaluation of the various methodologies applied in sewing this type of ensemble makes the whole design prodigious. Filled with appliqué using embroidery, the ensemble is in horsehair appearing couched and in a silk-wrapped manner that is flat. It has a flat silver-foil chain stitching covering the shoulders fully. The sleeves on the upper side besides those at the back have the same coating similar to the lime-green silk jacket made of satin. On the other hand, the skirt has vertical stripes with attachments to a waistband. Artistic deigns include embroidering the waistband using Ding ancestral imagery flatly with chain stitches outlined with thread looking couched along with gold wraps. Additions include piping with a cloth dyed with indigo that is also resistant to wax. The imagery rich value moves across all the ethnic groupings and dialects of the Miao. It is an essential aspect of communication where it communicates imagination, skill, and other significant features of the belief system of the people of Miao (Davis, 2005, 112). The prowess of the women preparing the Miao festive clothes is present in the types of clothes they make. It demonstrates the strong sense of their artistic tradition. Their motifs represent among others their religious beliefs such as temples, ancestral attachments, waves, frogs, forests, deer, and stars found in their sky at night. Themes that the people of Miao attach to these motifs remain universal and cuts across diverse dialects. It is possible to read themes by Miao from their clothes. They include regeneration and fertility, efforts to maintain their relationship with spirits and ancestors. Another important theme carried on these clothes through their artistic work is carrying on the memory of their lost homelands. This appears to rekindle nostalgic moments among these groups of people. The moments remain nostalgic because of the history of the Miao. Han, an ethnic community in China constantly migrated forcing the people of Miao to keep relocating and in the process moved far from the original location where they settled. The standards of design help them remember their landscape including among others crossed rivers while running away from constant raids by the Han. The circa 1940 picked from Guizhou remains a good example of a design of cloth that carries this type of information. It is an outer vest of the Miao, simple in the structure as well as the design. It shows a layout of double sets of crosses stitched in gold and brown silk. Through this, the community remembers plans of their traditional cities by their ancestors who lived in the east during the ancient times. Other sub communities among the Miao prefer geometric motifs that are more abstract on their clothes. However, they make sure that they carry the same them in the clothing regarding endures of their ancestral homeland. They render them in the ensemble of a woman constituting red crosses through the front part of a long top of a tunic (Krach, 1997, 41). Other qualities of the ensemble include tiny cross-stitches and thread embroidery that a person can count with ease. The designer makes effort to harmonize all the features with a cotton background that is also wax resistant. Assessment of a skirt with pleats gives more insights into the artistry work because it is voluminous. The clothing of the Miao has more than thirty distinct styles that cut across diverse regions, dialects, and social-cultural influences. Standard colors and styles among different Miao dialects include red, white, black, green, striped, and white among many more identified earlier. The Miao used thread to communicate with the rest of the world because traditionally, they lived without a written language. Conclusion The fabric remains symbolic of their traditional textiles of Southern China where they lived. This clothing talks more about the ancestors, myths, spirits, ethnic identity, wealth, artistic strength, and culture of the Mio people. The prowess of the women who created the festive clothes is clear in their style. Getting close to the centre of the ruling meant having impressions. Some of their lasting traces include clothes having the shape of loose tops with broad sleeves as well as skirts with front panels. This is in addition to serious ornamentation in all aspects. The Miao communities continue to remain some of the few around the globe rooted deeply into their cultural perspectives. Scholars agree that this is because of their remoteness. The clothing of the Miao tells a story of an individual wearing the particular type of clothing. The societies as well as people within continue to use clothes in addition to other adornment as a component of nonverbal communication representing rank, profession, occupation, sexual availability, gender, class, status, locality, group interaction, as well as wealth. Clothing is a type of free speech. It entails among other things jewellery, accessories, beauty, hairstyles, and body art such as tattoos. Clothing put on by people and how they put them on offers other individuals the shortest way to understand their literal social circumstance. The western or foreign culture will take time to penetrate into these groups and in the process dilute the rich cultural history. This explains why their culture continues to remain intact. Signage within a thread is quibble-making use of the thread by the people of Miao the best alternative by them to communicate to the rest of the world. Bibliography Aaron, M. 1996. The body’s perilous pleasures: Dangerous Desires and Contemporary Culture, London, Edinburgh University. Davis, E. L. 2005. Encyclopedia of contemporary Chinese culture. London, Routledge. Forrest, R. A. D. 1948. The Chinese language. London, Faber and Faber. Krach, M. S., 1997. D is for Doufu: an alphabet book of Chinese culture. Arcadia, Calif, Shens Books. Marks, U., 2000, The Skin of the Film, London, Duke University Press. Phelan, P, 1993, Unmarked, London, Routledge. Seremetakis, N, 1994, The senses still: perception & memory as material in modern culture, Oxford, Westview Press. Warr, T., 2000, The Artist’s Body, London, Phaidon. Read More