Lavender Hanfu
Historical Chinese Dress
Photographer
Brian Boling
Why I chose to make this costume:
I've been getting more and more interested in historical Chinese dress and it was inevitable that I would style a hanfu look. This soft lavender ensemble is inspired by the Lotus Pier aesthetics in MoDaoZuShi! I suppose it could be a cosplay of Jiang YanLi if you squint but I mainly put it together because I love PURPLE.
How I made this costume:
The main robes were purchased on AliExpress but there are some self-made elements like the bodice and the styling of the wig. You don’t know how delighted I was to discover an endless hair adornment selections on Ali Express and I had a lot of fun designing the hair style and mixing different hairpin sets together. The base wig is a straight lace front and I styled it into the half-updo and sewed the various buns and loops into it.
Thoughts on this costume:
Even though this was more of a put together costume rather than a crafting project, I really like the final look and I'm so happy I would take it to the Botanical Garden in St. Louis and get some fantastic photos with Brian.
The Chinese garden we shot in is fairly small (but gorgeous) so whenever visitors came through, we’d move out of the main path. I became the authentically dressed maiden welcoming garden visitors to the Chinese pagoda for a couple of hours 😂. Everyone was super understanding and kind about us taking photos which I really appreciated!
This was truly one of the best photo excursions I’ve ever done and I can’t thank @animestl enough for helping us arrange this opportunity!
