Research On The Design Of Hui Nationality 's Costume In Ningxia

Ningxia, an important transportation hub of Silk Road, whose civilization was flowed through and cleansed by Yellow River for thousands of years, plays an indispensable role in developing minority costumes. According to "Ningxia sixth national population census data bulletin,2010", the population of the Hui minority is2,190,979, which occupies34.77%of the entire population in China. As one of the most distinctive minorities among Chinese56ethnic nationalities, the Hui minority is well known as believing in Islam, while it is not hard to see the influence of Islam on the Hui costumes everywhere. Between the Tang and Qing dynasty, Persian, Arab missionaries, envoy, merchants and expedition sergeants, who came to China by Silk Road, became the ancestors of the Hui minority. Since the Ming dynasty, a large number of the Hui people were settled in Guyuan and Lingwu as the identity of Allegiance Roth. Later on, they gradually spread all over Ningxia. Date back to the historical development of the Hui minority; it continuously absorbed Islam culture, Arab culture, and Persian culture and Han culture in a long term. After a long-period filtering and deposits, it culminated the unique custom eventually. Costume is a significant link to the Hui culture, and there is no doubt that we can learn the actual feature of the Hui minority from the special costume.The costume is always named as "dressing" by the Hui people. It consists of headwear, top dress, bottom dress, foot accessories and various jewelries. In particular, headwear is the most prominent way to express the religion of the Hui. Based on the requirement of Islam, the top dress and bottom dress should be loose as well as conservative. Especially for women, they are not allowed to intentionally reveal their body size, hair, ears and neck. Otherwise, it is considered as unfaithful to "Iman"(their belief). In terms of foot accessories, people mainly focus on comfortable and durable. Still, jewelry plays a role of ornament. Islam does not encourage men to use too many accessories, while there are not too many restrictions to women. Since the evolution and development of the Hui costume in Ningxia, the current costume is quite different from the initial one. It already forms as a culture with local feature under the influence of multi-national area and natural environment. As a major component of the Hui culture, the research of the Hui costume is always concerned by many scholars. However, because of the lack of history information and different impacts on the Hui in different areas from geography, customs and religion, it contributes to the dilemmas of the study of the Hui costume. Ningxia has the largest population of the Hui minority, therefore, it has a great potential to progress the design of the Hui costume. We can not only provide more information of the Hui costume to other nationalities for better understandings, but also explore the slow development problem of the Hui costume and the solutions. In conclusion, the data and information were collected by field trip and interview in order for the better development of the Hui costume in Ningxia.