All kinds of waist adornments attract modern anthropologists and fashion designers for their rich culture. Tracing back to the origin, waist adornments carry primitive life worship meaning, but for modern people who seek for change and arrangement aesthetics, waist decorations are only a kind of popular adornments.
If those people who have been to Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong and Jiangxi in China see the local She minority girls, they will definitely be attracted by the unique head adornment "Phoenix Crown," a kind of red round piece of head adornment stretched from the back to the forehead. Because red hair threads are interwoven with hair, the phoenix crown could also be considered as a kind of hairstyle. Married women's hairstyle is different. They comb their hair into high pail type hair bun, cover the back of the head with a chicken crest shape cap and bind red wool thread in hair. Some women put a 5cm or shorter bamboo pipe on top of the head and wrap their hair around the bamboo pipe into a whorl shape. They use tea oil or water to comb the hair and mix hair with fake hair, so their hair buns look tall, fluffy and lustrous. The "phoenix crown" for the bride is a kind of small and pointing cap made by bamboo pipes, covered by yellow cloth, and decorated with silver boards, bells and red cloth strips. Four pieces of red cloth strips hang down to the waist and a row of silver small human figures hang in front of the forehead to cover the face, which makes the bride look pretty and mysterious. In festive days, She minority people would wear the complete set of "phoenix dress," which not only shows remembrance to their ancestors, but also makes them feel the protection from the previous generations. This is the ancestor worship existing in the costumes. In Chinese costumes as well as costumes of all mankind, one could always see primitive worship cultural concept displayed in all kinds of forms, either in general costume images or just a detail.
Phoenix Crown
waist decoration
