Gorgeous Tibetan Costume

Gorgeous Tibetan Costume
- an introduction to Tibetan apparel

Tibetans have been living a nomadic life for a very long period of time. The clothing and its accessories for these roamers are being modified from time to time so as to meet every situation they are facing everyday.

The clothing must be cold-proof, easy to dissipate heat, convenient for manual work, transformed to bedclothes for sleeping in the open air, easy to attach and carry household items. For Tibetan women, they are in the form of robe.

The following is the detailed features for Tibetan apparel:

1. basic structure: waist portion is not slim, sleeve is long, right portion is bigger than left portion, with boot, hair is braided and ornamented.

2. components: gown, coatee, waistcoat, belt, hat, boot, bangkdn (邦典Tibetan woolen apron), hair ornaments, ornaments, accessories and so on.

3. sleeve: long sleeve and sleeveless

4. texture: brocade, silk, sheepskin, thick and rough serge, woolen, plain and so on.

5. colouring: highly contrasted such as red vs green, white vs black, yellow vs purple; combining broken colour and gold/silver thread to produce bright but harmonious outlook.

6. textile pattern: increasing and aligning bands

7. ornament: commonly put on which is in gold, silver, jewel, ivory, coral, and turquoise

8. surface material: cotton, delicate wool (碴毽chā jiàn), silk, plain cloth, sheep skin, woolen, etc.

9. apron: bangkdn (邦典bāng diǎn, Tibetan woolen apron) is an important component of women's clothing, it indicates their marital status, The shape is in either rectangle or trapezoid (northern Tibet). Some employ highly colour contrasted bands to form strong visual pattern, some use small bands of similar colour tone to project elegant and moderate image. Gold and silver thread may be used to enhance the visual effect. Women in the same region have different perspective of colour and textile pattern, not to mention those women of different region.

10. belt: it is an integral part of Tibetan costume; some are made of woven fabric, some are decorated with precious metal

11. Tibetan boot: it is an important feature of traditional Tibetan costume. The decorative design on the boot is governed by Tibet customs and norms.

12. coatee: it is long-sleeved and worn under the Tibetan robe that is long-sleeve

13. waistcoat: there are some Tibetans put on waistcoat of different regional style

14. necklace: Tibetan called it as "gá wū噶乌”, the pendant is of 2 squares overlapping to each other, they are made of gold and silver and decorated with turquoise and precious stones; the chain is formed by chaining pearl, coral, dzi beads, etc.