coat(‘Hundred Bird’ coat); festival-costume; jacket BM-As1998-01.182

Period:Unknown Production date:20thC
Materials:cotton, job’s tears, silk (felt), chicken feather, hemp, wool,
Technique:sewn, embroidered, appliqué, dyed, felted, twill weave,

Dimensions:Length: 135 centimetres (including feathers) Width: 160 centimetres (across arms)

Description:
Jacket; for festival, to be worn by man or woman. Base cloth of unbleached, undyed cotton in diamond twill weave. Decorated with thin sheets of applied light green silk felt, with satin stitch motifs of mainly birds, in soft maroons, blues, greens, silks, probably stitched over paper cuts. Also applied narrow strips of shiny dark indigo cloth have had diamonds cut out, and are glued on then stitched over with silk. Front squares have a bird with a spiralling body and no wings. Twelve free-hanging panels at bottom, with white chicken feathers set into a folded-over square of hemp, attached with Job’s Tears.
IMG


Comments:Known as a ‘Hundred Bird’ coat.Text from Corrigan 2001: 46: danzhai county, qiandongnan prefecture. Festival Jacket. Collarless sleeved jacket with attached ‘skirt’ of twelve hanging panels, worn over a complete costume at festivals, probably by men and women alike. The base cloth is undyed hand-woven cotton in diamond twill weave. On the decorated areas are thin sheets of applied light green ‘silk felt’ embroidered with satin-stitch motifs.