Traditional Costumes

China boasts a brilliant history of clothing, some dating back to over 4,000 yearsyears ago, when Chinese people invented silk. Around the eighteenth century, when the rococo style arose in Europe, it became a fashion for aristocrats to wear Chinese-style costumes to festive balls. In fact, as early as the Tang Dynasty (618–907), China already led the world in its clothing industry. The clothes at the time were innovatively bright in color, light and soft in texture, flowing and graceful in style, and valuable in artistic terms, as evident in the extant Tang-style clothes preserved to this day in the Shoso-in Treasures of Japan.