I think a thread should be dedicated to discussing tibetan costumes and clothings.
The tibetan clothings and customs was inter-related to the nature and weather environment of the Tibetan plateau. The life style, production way had an impact on the decoratifs of the eyes. The tradition lineage of the tibetan towards costumes is related to the history and culture, illustrating the wisdom and aesthetism of the Tibetan ethnicity.
According to research by scholars, as early as 100 BC, the aborigine tribes at the Tibetan plateau already had a clothing style that was like today's Tibetan's clothing features of large waist, long sleeve, large front garmet, right long skirt, bounded waist, leather fur clothings etc. According to records by chinese sources, when Songstam Gambo (1st King of Tubo empire) was wearing his armour, the Tibetan were already able to weave leather (cow-skin) for tents, sheep's skin for clothings. In the 1970s, in the Lahsa Dazhao temple, the clothing of Songstam Gambo's gown and his princess's shoe was founded. Songstam Gambo's clothing was made of Lawa 拉瓦 (a type of pulu 氆氇 - the Tibetan weaved sheep-skin material used for clothings), and used to weave into gowns of large waist, long sleeve and big front. The princess's shoe was like today's Gaka 嘎咯 (a type of tibetan shoe) and it was made of cow's leather skin. Today, the earliest discovered human decoratifs found in Tibet originated from the Karuo (卡若） Neolithic Culture Excavation site. There were over 50 decoratifs excavated including hairpin (faji 发笄)、 pendant (huang 璜)、 ring (huan 环)、 beads (zhu 珠)、neck decoratifs (xiang shi 项饰)、bracelet (zhuo 镯)、shell decoratifs (bei shi 贝饰) etc. These were made of stone, jade or bones. From these excavation, one can relate the customs of early Karuo people with today's tibetan, including hair, neck, breast and hand decoratifs. Thesse indicated that during the neolitic period, the ancestors of the Tibetans already had a stable and creative system of man-made decoratifs.
As history passes by, the Tibetan eye decoratifs were later influenced by the clothings of han, Mongols, Manchus as well as persians, especially in terms of the use of colors and methods of production. But the overall structure of decoratifs still preserved the main traditional characteristics of the Tibetan.
The eye decoratifs were generally divided into two areas: pastoral and nomadic type. This was developed according to the lifestyle of Tibetans. It can also be categorized according to city-like and rural-type. From status, it can categorized into peasants, monasteries, aristocracy type. For aristocrats, the eye decoratifs are very elaborate, full of variety and had fine-artistic sculpture.
The northern Tibetan plateau had low temperature, strong wind. The people there has chosen a type of clothings that allowed them to move around as well as protect them from the cold weather. The nomadic area generally wore leather gown as their main clothing. Its structure is large, had wide breast line. During the daytime, one can wind up the sleeve and in the nighttime, one can easily unloose the clothing to allow one to sleep. One cannot wear the leather gown without a waist-band. The Tibetan waist-band is able to carry or put many necessary daily items. The leather gown was made of sheep-skin.
The hats of Tibetan are varied: including matted hat, leather hat, golden silk flower hat etc. The matted hats was one of the oldest hat of the Tibetan ethnicty. The Tibetan Scholar Gengdun Qiongpei (根敦琼培)'s book Baishi 《白史》 had a record of the ancient Anduo Majiapeng 安多玛贾绷 wearing such hat.
The tibetan shoes are known to have high cut (长简靴), whch is about 2cm tall at bottom. It can be groupe into "Songba 松巴" and "Galuo 嘎洛" type.
If you can read chinese, you can refer to the original source at http://www.chinatibetnews.com/GB/channel7/...08/13/1051.html
Do you have any picture of Tibetan clothings?
