Unique phoenix dress of She Ethnic Group

She woman’s clothing, slightly different in different areas, is common in that there are kinds of embroideries on the coat. Especially for the woman’s jackets in Fuding and Xiapu of Fujian Province, the collars, fronts, upright clothes and even cuffs are embroidered with patterns of birds and flowers, dragons and phoenixes. She women’s main clothes are the “phoenix dress”. A long pigtail plaited with a red string is combed above the head, symbolizing the phoenix head; the clothes and aprons are embroidered with colorful patterns with bright red, pink, and pinkish yellow threads as well as gold and silver silk threads, signifying the neck, girth and feather of a phoenix; the end of golden belt tied around the waist is drifting behind, symbolizing phoenix’s tail; the silver ornaments with jolly sounds are worn over the whole body, signifying the phoenix chirps.

The married woman generally wears” the phoenix coronet.” It is made of the exquisite thin bamboo wrapped with red handkerchief and hung with a piece of red damask silk of 30 cm long and 3 cm wide. On the coronet, there is also a round silver medal attached with 3 little silver medals flagging before the forehead, called the “dragon coil”, indicating that it was the phoenix coronet worn by the “third princess. ” There is a legend about the phoenix coronet. Because the ancestor of She people- King Pinggua has rendered outstanding service when defeating the vassals, Emperor Gaoxin married his own daughter the third princess to him. On the wedding day, the queen put the phoenix coronet on her daughter’s head and dressed her the phoenix clothing inlaid with the jewels, blessing her to bring luck and fortune to life like a phoenix. After the third princess had a daughter, she also dressed her up like a phoenix.

When the daughter get married, a phoenix carried in the mouth a phoenix dress to be her marriage clothes from the Phoenix Mountain in Guangdong province. From then on, She women start to wear the phoenix dress, so as to have a good luck. In some places, people call the bride “the phoenix”. Because a bride has the lofty status as the third princess, she does not fall on her knees in front of the forefather’s spirit tablet at the bridegroom’s home.