I think it’s a shame that capitalism has mostly erased the diverse ways people have dressed over the centuries and across regions.

People used to take so much pride in their appearance. Many still do today but not nearly on the same level as our ancestors and that’s often because we simply don’t have the time to do so, even for ceremonial purposes. Now everybody wears a t-shirt and jeans or a bourgeois business suit regardless of what country or culture you go to and it’s just depressing. I hesitate to even call it “Western” in style because while it did originate in the West it also destroyed existing Western dress styles. Clothing used to have cultural meanings and now it’s just “whatever I like and is practical” and that kind of reductionism for what was historically one of the core pillars of visual cultural expression is kinda heartbreaking.

Capitalism really does just kill human culture.

I say this as a “casual fan/admirer” of hanfu and with having less knowledge about other traditional garb of other cultures: I think it’s incredibly interesting to see what versions of ethnic/traditional clothing are “fossilized” as “the model”/standard. When I say “fossilized” I mean the standard is chosen from a specific era - like, [southern] germanic people didn’t all wear lederhosen since time immemorial.

In regards to hanfu, there’s more of an element of “un-fossilizing” in the hanfu movement:

1. Chinese national garb used to be cheongsam and tang suit and recognized such internationally (there’s also a clade of hanfu/traditional clothing enthusiasts who focus on more historically accurate/republican era cheongsam/qipao). However those clothing is more regionally[manchu origin][->southern adaptations] and temporally locked, and carries a lot of the connotation and context of the century of humiliation which is one of the reasons why hanfu and its wider history/varieties has taken over in popularity (no I won’t let people who just say it’s all because of ““han supremacy”” although there definitely is a minority of hobbyists who would fall into that category of chauvinism) ANYWAY it’s really nice that hanfu/however stylized is getting taken seriously outside of historical or costume dramas, and it’s making its way to acceptable formal wear. It used to be only western suits and dresses accepted as formalwear, with the occasional cheongsam.

2. There’s several millennia of history for what’s considered “hanfu” and many hobbyists prefer x or y forms from specific eras, as well as the emergence of “modern hanfu” where sometimes the style (depending on the designer) radical mixes with modern western clothing or anachronistic elements… sometimes this range of style blends into inspiration from video game/cartoon, and gets into “cosplay” territory.

3. There’s hundreds of trends and even microtrends within hanfu specifically. I’m sure there are literally fiber purists out there, rejecting modern and synthetic fibers for pure historical recreations and construction methods… there’s “modern” hanfu pictured above. One trend/style I’ve seen that I enjoy is “commoner” garb and I suppose would also be described as “costume drama NPC”.

4. oh and last note about hanfu specifically. Tang era stuff gets confused for Japanese, and Ming era gets confused for Korean. There’s a lot of discourse about the historicity of why that is, but I’ve already typed a lot and I’m getting lazy… I think this blog post on the topic is decent.

Depends on the particular traditional wear, but some are certainly interesting.

On a related note, the westernization of the world erases any further development of traditional clothing into a modern context, relegating them to traditional events and such, which is a shame.

I like to idealise trad clothes as “proletarian” while knowing that the colourful stuff was worn only by rich people and most people didn’t dress as nice