CLOTHING

Ronni O., Joyce-Marie G., and Shannon O. **Chinese Clothing for Men and Women, Chinese Foot Binding**  What is your favorite style of clothing? Everybody loves clothes and loves to express themselves throught their clothing. This also applies to Chinese men and women, clothing is also very important to them in their culture. Chinese culture has constantly changed over the years. The same for us. It has changed in mens clothing and women's clothing. Also, the art of chinese art of foot binding was a very important part of early women's clothing. Which some chinese women still do today. Below, we go into more detail about men's clothing, women's clothing and foot binding.

**Chinese Men' s Clothing- Ronni** Just with all clothing there is traditional and non-traditonal. This also applies to the Chinese. Traditional clothing has more of a meaning behind each article of clothing. Depending on who you were, and how important you were your clothes showed your social level. This was especially applied if you worked in the government. As time has gone on more modern clothing has been preferred. Western clothing and name brands are the most popular style of clothing."..an increased western look is preferred, and there is an emphasis on formal wear over casual wear for adults on the streets. Teenagers prefer brand names. Children usually wear clothes decorated with cartoon characters. "(wikipedia.com 1) The teens in China can be seen wearing the same clothes as the teen here in America. Modern day Chinese men are sporting the same clothes clothes as men living in the United States.

 __**Foot Binding **__   **-- Shannon ** <span style="color: rgb(245, 41, 179);">Throughout Chinese culture styles are always changing. One trend, lasted for more than a thousand years. This style, which proved whether or not a woman would be considered beautiful, was to wear extremely tiny slippers. The only way to make this possible, was to bind their feet. This means that at a very young age, children who were usually only six or seven years old would have their feet wrapped up tightly. It broke the bones and twisted the toes underneath of the foot. For one to two years these girls would have the bindings on their feet until they were able to reach the envied size of three inches. At last they would be able to wear the tiny, beautifully, embroidered silk slippers such as the pair above. The only problem with foot binding is that it caused serious injury. Certain women couldn't even walk. What's the purpose of having tiny feet if you cant even walk? Also, they were very ugly looking, and incredibly uncomfortable. Luckily people finally recognized that foot binding was a bad idea, and China banned it. Although it is now illegal to practice foot binding anymore, there are still old women who live in pain from when they were kids. If anything good came from this style, it was the fact that it showed that you should never drastically change your body to be beautiful. __<span style="color: rgb(255, 123, 0);">**Women's Clothing** __<span style="color: rgb(158, 11, 208);"><span style="color: rgb(255, 123, 0);">**- Joyce-Marie** You've seen how American clothing has changed. It's the same for other countries too. Over the course of China's history, women's fashion has changed. It has had a very interesting past. During its many dynasties, or time periods with different rulers, the clothing style differed. one style that stood out to me was the Tang Dynasty's fashion. The girls wore fancy make-up and beautiful headdresses. their dresses were extremely pretty also. A picture of what they would typically look like is below. When China was under Communism, the fashion of clothing for women changed greatly from the Tang Dynasty. The women fashioned what is called a 'Mao Suit'. This name was given after the ruler of China, Chairman Mao. The suit was a loose fitting suit with pants, and there was nothing to make it special and stand out (Mao). Fortunatly, today's clothing in China looks a lot better. It's a modernized version of the style of another Dynasty. A blast from the past, it's a stlye that will be seen in Chinese women today.