• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.115-123
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• 2001

The dress and ornaments in the Taijiang were fashionable, which were densely populated with Miao nationality. Women's traditional festive dress in Taijiang included an embroidered blouse and a pleated skirt. The garments are decorated with plenty of ornamental designs. The colours of festive dress were as rich and gorgeous as those of fashinable desses. Embroidery was very popular in Taijiang and its principal feature is embroidery with loose, coloured floss silk. The image of patterns changed ingeniously and colourfully but do harmony. In the using of colour, one kind of the festive dress was in the main red, which means a bright dress. The colour of another kind of festive dress was blue, which means a dark dress. There were many kinds of silver ornaments for women. Taijiang was most outstanding in this respect. The great variety of silver ornaments was a unique feature of women's dress in Taijiang.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.52 no.1
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• pp.21-36
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• 2002

The Miaos have their own unique and luxurious culture traditional and modern formed as they have experienced repeated fusion into and resistance against the Han Race or the Chinese in their long and old history. Taijiang County of Guizhou Provice, in which whey have been living, is endowed with natural beauty. Thus their culture enjoys abundant and diverse contents of artificial and natural character. Naturally, their costume reflects cultural and natural features in abundance and variety. This dissertation aims to investigate the artistic character of Miaos' traditional costume as reflected in patterns for their embroidery. As for the artistic character of the patterns for embroidery, the following were found. To begin with, the space in the Miaos' embroidery is, unlike the measurable three-dimensional space found in Greek art, unmeasurable and fantastic with its beauty, majesty and peculiarity. It is as if immersed in limitless space, they were in communion with gods and universe. Another characteristic is the use of image construction beyond mere imitation. Their mode of image construction was realistic in that patterns as a whole reveal an abstract form or meaning but separately they portray visual representations of concrete thins in nature. Still another is that sense of motion conveyed by the basic curve line is full of life. It was the result of using light rhythm breaking stereotypic balance and symmetry. Finally, the colouring was abstract, and a strong contrast between black and white was gorgeous and fantastic.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.53-60
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• 2001

The Miao nationality is one of China's major ethnic group. The Miao traditional costume, as an ideographic symbol of the Miao people, have preserved its unique characteristics up to the present time. Historically there were many old names given only for ciothings, still they have reflected the complexities of the ciothings of the Miao people. The southeast Guizhou (Qiandongnan) modal of dress and ornament are fashionable in countries in the valley of Qingshui River such as Taijiang, Kaili, Leishan, Jianhe, Huangping, Shibing, which are densely populated with the Miao nationality. Women's traditional wear for the most part consists of a short coat with straight sleeves and the left lapel of the collar overlaps the right one (In some areas, the right lapel overlaps the left one). For lower garments, they wear long or medium sized pleated skirts, broad waistbands and leggings. Their attire may be of the same style, but there exist marked regional differences and distinctive features in dress materials, workmanship, contents and variety of designs and colour matching, as evolved from tradition. Merely from the embroidering skill and the materials used, one can judge where the dress is made.