Ruqun

What the name covers

The two characters say it plainly: ru is a jacket and qun is a skirt. Used narrowly, ruqun means a short top called the ru worn over a long skirt, the qun. Used widely, it takes in any hanfu built from a separate top and a wrap-around lower garment, a sense that has replaced the older word yichang. Under that broader meaning, the shanqun and the aoqun both count as ruqun. Yichang reaches further: it covers any paired top and bottom, chang meaning either skirt or trousers, and it even includes the qungua, the wedding dress. Writers note that the term shifts from region to region.

Origins and history

Chinese tradition, in the Xi Ci Xia chapter of the Yi Jing, credits the legendary Yellow Emperor and the emperors Yao and Shun with wearing the two-part yichang. Writers on dress point instead to the Shang dynasty, where a top and a bottom worn together became the basic shape of hanfu, shared by both sexes. Zhou cutting was looser, with sleeves wide or narrow; the Warring States and Spring and Autumn periods kept the ruqun and saw the one-piece shenyi appear beside it. Han women, elite and ordinary alike, wore jacket and skirt. The fashion faded after the Eastern Han, returned under the Jin and Northern Wei, and lasted until the Qing.

The order of heaven

The pairing carries a cosmology. In the Yi Jing, the upper garment is Qian, heaven, and the lower is Kun, earth; that is why the mianfu sets black above and red or yellow below. The Wuxing gives black to the sky before dawn and yellow to the earth. Length carried the same idea: in 1537 the Ming Minister of Rites Huo Tao wanted women's tops cut level with the waist so the skirt met them, since earth supports heaven, and he called a top that covered the skirt a confusion of male and female. The Shuyuan zaji, quoted by Lu Rong, called the maweiqun a case of fuyao, bad dress, and it was banned in the early Hongzhi era, 1487 to 1505.

Jackets, layers and skirts

Ao and shan are the two ways of making the top. The ao is lined and often padded, worn in cold weather, and the Xinhua Dictionary calls it a garment of several layers; the character appears in the Qieyun, a Sui rime dictionary of 601. The shan is unlined, a single layer. The Gujinzhu, a Jin dynasty book, says women wore joined upper and lower garments from the Yellow Emperor's day until the Qin, when the shan was devised. Shan shapes varied a great deal; a Han and Wei version had straight, equal front edges, the duijin, tied with cord. The ao normally sits outside the skirt, often a mamianqun, while trousers called ku can be worn beneath.

In art and tombs

Much of what is known comes from objects rather than texts. Wall paintings at Dunhuang show shanqun worn by the benefactors who paid for them. Pottery figurines dug up at Luoyang carry related styles, as do the paintings of Gu Kaizhi. Female tomb figures from Northern Wei Luoyang wear outfits descended from the ruqun; one has a short jacket belted and knotted at the front, wide sleeves dropping to the knee or lower, and a waistline set very high. Elite women of the Wei and Jin were shown in a wide-cuffed, V-necked unlined blouse of patterned cloth trimmed at the neck, a long skirt, and an apron.

How Ruqun is kept

The set needs two pieces. A short jacket goes with a separate wrap skirt, and the placement varies: in the Shang dynasty the top was worn over the lower garment, while ordinary Han women had the skirt covering the jacket. Trousers called ku can go under the skirt. In cold weather a lined or padded ao takes the place of the single-layer shan and is usually worn outside the skirt. Wei and Jin elite women added an apron; a weichang, an apron-like panel, was sometimes tied between shan and qun.

When and where

No single day belongs to it. Its history runs from the Shang dynasty to the Qing, with particular fashions in the Warring States and Spring and Autumn periods, the Han, the Wei and Jin dynasties, and the Ming.

It belongs to China, where Han Chinese dress set the norm. The strongest evidence comes from the north and from the Silk Road edge: tomb figures found at Luoyang, murals at Dunhuang, and the paintings of Gu Kaizhi.

What Ruqun means

For the people who wore it, the two-part outfit was not just clothing. The upper garment stood for heaven and the lower for earth, an order that should not be muddled, which is why ceremonial sets put black above and red or yellow below. Even the lengths carried meaning, and a Ming official wanted women's tops kept short so that earth, the skirt, would appear to hold up heaven. Clothing thought to overturn those rules, like the maweiqun, could be condemned as fuyao.

Questions people ask about Ruqun

See also

Traditional tattooingThe ancient custom of marking the skin for protection, healing, status and sacred ritesQizhuangThe traditional attire of the Manchu people, characterized by riding coats, trousers, and horse-hoof cuffs.DoppaAn embroidered cap, square or round, that Uyghurs and Uzbeks wear across Central AsiaCheongsamA fitted one-piece Chinese dress with a high collar and side slits, worn since the 1920s

Good reading and sources

• Ruqun on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-12.