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An octocat designed as in the Ming Dynasty
Mingtocat
Mingtocat, an Octocat designed as a series of roles in the Ming Dynasty of China
Mingtocat is a designed Octocat with clothing of a series of roles in the Ming Dynasty, like emperors, generals or even a common person and what we saw above is one of the informal uniforms. As an open source, Mingtocat is allowed to download in any picture format: SVG | PNG | GIF, but business using must be refused. What the purpose of designing is to make the history of Chinese clothing known by more people all over the world.
1. Mingtocat as an emperor clothing with original suits
According to some study, the clothing shown above arose during the later stage of the Ming. In this stage, color of the clothing was not only set as yellow, what we normally see. Not only the color, but also the usage of dermatoglyphic pattern (紋樣) has changed into various. This clothing has been designed based on the artifacts drawn in the picture, named "Ru Bi (入跸圖)". The whole clothing has been divided into five parts: the crown, the robe (袍), the inside clothing (中衣), the belt (帶), and the boots.
Crown
There were two "ears" on the crown, and they were actually called "the Wing of WuSha (烏沙翼)". In the later stage of the Ming Dynasty, the shape this pair of wing, has become more and more round. In addition, there were some gold jewelries on the crown, with a meaning of "Double dragons were playing with a same peal".
Robe
Besides yellow, purple robe was usually used in a informal occasion. At the shoulder, there were two seals, which were respectively represented for the Sun (日) with a red color in the left side and the Moon (月) with a white color in the right side. A pattern with four encircling dragons (團龍), which was always four, sometimes eight or twelve, were embroidered (繡於) at the middle position and two sleeves. How elegant they were. Notice that the white parts of the inside clothing would be shown a little outside the sleeves named "Chen Bai (襯擺)".
Inside Clothing
The collar of the inside clothing was usually dressed into cross like the character Y, which was usually decorated with red or yellow color.
Belt
The belt was mainly designed with jades, and its color was usually red or yellow. In China, this belt was called "Dai Ting (帶鞓)".
Boots
The boots would always be black boots named "Zao Boots (皂靴)".
References
[1] 《Q版大明衣冠图志》，董进（撷芳主人），2014