Hua Mei. Chinese clothing

Beijing: China Intercontinental Press, 2004. — 160 p. — (Cultural China). — ISBN: 7508505409.北京：五洲传播出版社,2004年。—160页。中国服饰，华梅著。From the day garments became part of people’s lives, they have been given different significance of social status, lifestyle, aesthetics and cultural concepts. Garments have always been the truest and most straightforward reflection of the social and historical scenes of any given time. In this sense, the history of garments is at the same time a vivid history on the development of civilization. In the Chinese way of describing the necessities of life, clothing ranks at the top of garments, food, shelter and means of travel. In this country with a long history of garments and ornaments, there is a wealth of archeological findings showing the development of garments, as well as their portrayals in ancient mythology, history books, poems and songs, novels and drama. The development of the Chinese garments can be traced back to the late Paleolithic age. Archeological findings have shown that approximately 20,000 years ago, the primitives who lived in the now Zhoukoudian area of Beijing were already wearing personal ornaments, in the form of tiny white stone beads, olive-colored pebbles, animal teeth, clam shells, fish bones and bone tubes, all meticulously perforated.