Judy, Aimee and I went to China in April of 2011. One of our favorite things to do on vacation is to bring a costume and find an epic location to do a photoshoot. Beijing has some amazing options, so we decided we all needed hanfu and we asked around about good spots to take photos. Turns out there are no regulations for going to the Summer Palace in costume. In fact, it’s not uncommon to see people there in rental costumes. We saw one lady in a Qin Dynasty dress while we were there.
I’ve wanted to do a Green Snake costume forever. The Legend of the White Snake is my favorite Chinese Opera, and I own every movie and tv series of this story that I can get my hands on. Sadly, I’ve never gotten to play Green Snake in Opera, but I’ve learned some of White Snake’s parts.
The bodice with the scales is copied from one of Green Snake’s outfits from the 2006 tv series. The rest of the costume was designed based on movie style hanfu. Chiffon and sheers look really cool, but oh what a pain to deal with when trying to do multiple layers!
We had a great time shooting at the Summer Palace! It was a ton of fun and everyone was really nice to us. We even had a couple people recognize us (’cause Aimee based her costume on a tv show too)! Surprisingly, most of the questions revolved around if our hair was real vs. where we got our costumes.
First Worn: Photoshoot 2011
