Saturday 10 July 2010

The Rustic Idyll


This was the original outfit before it went all Victoriental in the Ricepunk Traveller. It's fairly basic and is frequently seen in the sort of rural drama that plays on the rustic idyll that periodically airs in Hong Kong. I have rather distinct memories of the melodramatic Plain Love (following the struggles of an indentured servant and a tenant farmer in China at the cusp of World War Two).

The model is wearing beige linen Ru (襦) and black linen Ku (褲) with a wide black linen sash. She's also wearing an iconic rice hat.

I did it the designs mostly from memory (as I thought 1995 is rather too distant a past to scour the internet for, though it turns out that it is available on youtube if I can bear to watch it dubbed in Mandarin). An apron and a headscarf would probably be more evocative as accessories go, but part of my doubts that the readers of this blog would have been in any way exposed the costuming in what was probably a very forgettable TVB series (they did then make a number of spiritual sequels about the various rural workings of a tea plantation and later a rice winery.)

As an aside, the Designer points out that the white blossoms seen in the background of the shots is elderflower. Insert joke here about elderflower wine.

To commission a similar outfit from the Mercenary would cost in the region of £80-90.

More photos of the Rustic Idyll under the cut.



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