HER clothes are like the floating clouds and her face is like flowers, when the spring breeze brushes banisters and the dew glitters,” ­comes from the poem “Qing Ping Diao,” written by poet Li Bai from the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907). Readers are not only enraptured by the beauty of Yang Yuhuan, the favorite concubine of Tang emperor Li Longji but also the beauty of her traditional Chinese dresses. Now more and more youngsters are falling in love with these pretty, artisanal robes with historical roots. The name hanfu is given to pre-17th century traditional clothing of the Han Chinese, the country’s predominant ethnic group. In the music video of “Yihonglian (Reminiscence of the Red Lotus),” virtual artist Luo Tianyi, the Chinese counterpart of Hatsune Miku, a persona of a Japanese voice-imitated project Vocaloid, who is now a global icon, dresses in a red-and-white hanfu and sings an ancient Chinese-style song. Hanfu is seeing a revival in interest, with elements related to the design of hanfu introduced in modern clothing styles and erciyuan culture, or a two-dimensional space, a term referring to anime, manga and games. The revival is also seen in the daily lives of people. During the National Day holiday, people, especially young girls, brighten up the streets and tourist attractions with their hanfu clothing. Xu Qinren, a local 29-year-old woman, wears hanfu clothing every day. Xu Qinren, a local 29-year-old woman, wears hanfu clothing every day. Xu Qinren, a local 29-year-old woman, wears hanfu clothing every day. Xu Qinren, a local 29-year-old woman, wears hanfu clothing every day. While others put on shirts and jeans or modern clothes, she dresses herself in ruqun, a wrap-around skirt, and banbi, a form of waistcoat or outerwear worn over a ruqun with half-length sleeves. Her affection for hanfu grew through these activities and she began to study traditional Chinese culture in depth. Since some hanfu styles are suitable for daily wear, she has been dressing in hanfu for a long time. “At the very beginning, men traditional chinese clothes I saw my friend dressed in hanfu and found it very beautiful,” Xu said. She spends around 2,000 yuan a year on buying hanfu clothing. Xu thinks wearing hanfu every day can promote traditional Chinese culture. “I believe that making hanfu daily wear is a real embracement of it, instead of placing them on a pedestal,” she said. “Every time I had to explain that it’s hanfu, our traditional clothes. “During the first few years that I became fond of hanfu, around 2010 to 2014, people often mistook what I wore as a Japanese kimono or Korean hanbok,” Xu said. “But now I find more and more people understand what hanfu is and almost every pedestrian who saw my dress knows it’s hanfu. She even took hanfu as her wedding dress. Hanfu culture gathers her and many friends with the same interest. Her husband also wore hanfu to the ceremony, which follows traditional han people’s marriage customs. “My friends and I also established a group for han dance. “The friendship that generates from the same interest is very pure and stable,” said Xu. However, she still worries that some costume dramas and online pictures don’t show the real hanfu. “Costume dramas sometimes don’t pay much attention about whether the costumes actors or actresses wore were authentic. They cared more about whether they were eye-catching,” she said. She also said some online stores sold fake hanfu. She hopes the festival can continue and gain more support from authorities. Xu thinks these dramas, as one of the most effective promotion ways, don’t work well on telling people what hanfu is, and misleads them with fake hanfu. “I began being attracted by hanfu when I saw some friends posting information about it on my WeChat and found these clothes very charming,” she said. Zhou Yingxi, 20, from Fujian Province, started wearing hanfu in 2013 and made the ancient attire daily wear after she went to college. She jokes about being very poor so that she wears hanfu in daily life. Her mother supports her interest and often asks her to wear the clothes and take pictures. “Wearing hanfu makes me save money for many other clothes,” she says. “I heard the girl on the back seat telling her friend on the phone that she saw a lady wearing hanfu and some other related things. “During a recent tour to Ningbo (a city in Zhejiang Province), I wore a mix-and-match of beizi (a large, loose coat in hanfu) and jeans when riding on a bicycle and met two girls on an electric bicycle,” Zhou said. “When she looked back, traditional hanfu she found I was looking at her and felt embarrassed. The role played by hanfu is not only a bridge between those wearing hanfu and ordinary people but also a bond between hanfu dressers. However, the organizer treated her like an old friend and guided her to a seat. “I can always recall the first hanfu event I participated in,” said Zhou. “When the activity started, there was no awkwardness nor strangeness and everything was very nice,” she said. The tongpao, a name for hanfu lovers, that she knew two years ago are still close friends. She says it’s nice to see more and more people wearing hanfu and that there are some clubs emerging at her school.