In Part I of Dressing my 18" Twinns, I talked about selecting Berkeley's and Kim's new cultural clothing, including hair accessories and hairstyles. I also considered which Asian cultures and clothing styles I would select for Cai and Pearl.

I knew that one of the cultural styles I wanted for the girls was the traditional Han style from the Tang dynasty of ancient China.

I absolutely adore this beautiful, ethereal style. But trying to find an 18" doll Hanfu style dress turned up nothing, not even a pattern. So I did what I had to do, and mish-mashed my own pattern together.

So the type of Hanfu dress I wanted to make is called qí yāo rú qún (waist-high rú qún). It consists of a wide, waist-high skirt, a camisole-like undershirt, a long-sleeved placket blouse (yījīn) and often a narrow scarf (pī bó) to drape over the arms. This wasn't a small order!

Fortunately I didn't have to make everything completely from scratch. I was lucky that McCall's has a 18" international clothing pattern with a nearly perfect match for the blouse. I was originally going to alter the kimono pattern to make the placket blouse, but found the sleeves weren't the right length or cut. On the other hand, I realized that the Peruvian jacket fit the bill very nicely.

I tweaked the pattern by using a sheer fabric and adding a bias ribbon at the neck and test-tried it on another 18" Twinn. Looks ok so far.

Because these blouses often have decorative embroidery, I added some iron-on cherry blossom patches. Here's the blouse nearing completion with what will become the skirt waistband.
 

I made the skirt from a layer of satin and pleated chiffon, then attached the waistband after adding more embroidery to it.

The waistband has a hole to thread the other end through and wrap around the waist. I based the structure on a modern-day Hanfu recreation, although there is more than one way this kind of skirt can be structured.
 

On hindsight, making the waistband/ tie from the shiny slippery satin fabric wasn't the best choice. But it does look pretty.

I added more embroidery patches to the ends.

The camisole undershirt (I don't know what it's called) that I made was a simple, fitted satin shirt with thin straps and embellished with more embroidery.

Here is the almost completed outfit.  Not too bad. The slippery waist isn't too keen on staying tied though, so I added the gold tassels to help hold it in place.
 

I then made the scarf, or pī bó, from the same fabric as the upper layer of the skirt.

Luckily the completed dress is a good match for this jeweled, gold-tone hairstick that I had previously ordered.
 

I made a pair of matching earrings, and then made one more pair in gold and in a bolder style. I was already planning ahead.
 

So I'm fairly happy with how the qí yāo rú qún Hanfu turned out, for a first try. I might change a thing or two next time, like switch up the waistband fabric or make the sashes longer. But overall I think it captures the right look.

A similar style to this Hanfu is qí xiōng rú qún (chest-high rú qún). This was the style I wanted to make originally. But most 18's doll arm sockets sit rather low and prevent the skirt from actually being worn chest high. But pushing the waistband up a bit almost creates the impression of a chest high skirt. In this case, a decorative undershirt might not be needed.

By the time I had finished the Hanfu outfit, I had a pretty good idea who I wanted to wear it: Cai. She has that sweet little smile that I felt would look good with this lovely, dreamy style of clothing.



But in order to create the cultural hairstyle I wanted for her, she was going to need longer hair than the wig I originally chose for her. So I switched it out with another very similar, though longer hairstyle.
 

After reading about and watching many videos on traditional Chinese hairstyles, I knew what I wanted to do with Cai's hair. Images like these were my inspiration.
 

I also got some ideas from YouTube favorites like Cosplay Queen and Yumi King.

So I propped Cai backwards in a stand to keep the back of her hair from getting caught in the frame while I worked on it, and started with two high ponytails on the sides of her head.
 

I divided, braided, twisted, and pinned, trying to use elements of the different hairstyle images.
 

I finally settled on these cute looping braids and bands.
 

Here's Cai testing out her hair stick.

I love Cai's hairstyle, but there are so many beautiful traditional Chinese hairstyles, I may try several more before this is all over!

At last the time came for Cai to put on her Hanfu clothing and hair accessories.
 

Lastly went on her earrings. I think she looks beautiful, like a Chinese princess.

Here's completed Cai with completed Kim and Berkeley.

So I originally intended this post to be about both Cai and Pearl, but since both girls required a little more time and effort to dress, I'm going to have to save Pearl's dress up party for my next post, Dressing my 18" Twinns Part III. Interestingly Pearl's outfit was both much easier and much more challenging than Cai's. I'll tell all about it next time. :)

(I apologize for the quality of some of the images. My camera broke a while back and I had to use my lame phone forever, until I got my new camera huzzah.)