Qungua

While Western wedding dress tends to be white in colour, Chinese traditional wedding clothing favours the use of red and gold colour.[1]

The gua was originally black in colour while the skirt was originally red in colour.[5]

The gua which is completely red in colour only appeared in the 1960s.[5] Since then the traditional black gua and red qun started to be used for the bride's mother instead of being worn by the brides themselves.[5][3]

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  Bride wearing Qing dynasty qungua.
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  Qungua (left) worn by Chinese brides, 1900s.
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  Qungua is a two-piece garment attire: black gua and red qun.
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  Long skirt qun
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  Red gua
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  Construction of a black gua jacket.
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  Black gua

The qungua is typically embroidered with the Chinese dragons called long (simplified Chinese: 龙; traditional Chinese: 龍) and the Chinese phoenix called feng (simplified Chinese: 凤; traditional Chinese: 鳳).[3] It can also be decorated with other auspicious symbols, such as pomegranate (symbolism for fertility), peony flowers, lotus flowers, bats, goldfish, butterfly and birds.[5]

Nowadays, there are 5 different types of qungua which is named accordingly to the percentage of embroidery covering the dress:[1]

1. Xiaowufu (小五福): 30% covered with embroidery,
2. Zhongwufu (中五福): 50% covered with embroidery
3. Dawufu (大五福): 70% covered with embroidery
4. Guahou (褂后): 90% covered with embroidery
5. Guahuang (褂皇): 100% covered with embroidery

The Betawi bridal dress, partly influenced by Chinese culture and by Indonesian culture, looks similar to the Chinese qungua.[7] Like the qungua, the Betawi bridal dress is a two-piece set of attire which composed of an ankle-length with wider bottom skirt called kun and an upper garment called tuaki.[7] The tuaki is decorated with Chinese auspicious symbols.[7] One difference from the qungua is the use of Betawi Lotus, also known as Betawi pomegranate, a separate ornamental garment which covers the chest and shoulder areas (similar to the yunjian of the Chinese people).[7] The Betawi lotus was used to denote the origins of the Betawi bride, but it was eventually replaced by beads which typically follows the Spanish cherry floral pattern.[7] The kun and tuaki must match in colour.[7]

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  Chinese Bride in Batavia in her wedding dress, 1870. The dress is heavily influenced by Chinese culture but also shows subtle differences.
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  Betawi bride and groom, 2008.

The qungua is different from the fengguan xiapei (Chinese: 凤冠霞帔), another type of Traditional Han Chinese wedding set of attire, which was worn in Ming and Qing dynasties[3] in terms of composition of garments and accessories which the qungua lacks of. The fengguan xiapei is a set of attire which was composed of red mang ao (Chinese: 蟒袄; lit. 'python jacket'), which is a type of Ming dynasty-style round-collar robe decorated with dragons, which was worn by Han Chinese women as a court robe; a xiapei (Chinese: 霞帔), which is a type of long scarf in Ming and a type of stole in Qing dynasty; a mangchu (Chinese: 蟒裙; lit. 'Python skirt'), which is a skirt which can be red or green and is embroidered with dragons and phoenixes on the front and back skirt lapels), and the fengguan, the phoenix coronet.[9] The Wedding attire is sometimes decorated with Chinese cloud collar known as yunjian.[9]

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  Portrait of lady in fengguan xiapei in Qing dynasty,
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  Qing dynasty fengguan xiapei (凤冠霞帔), a yunjian is on top of the attire.

The qungua is distinct from another Chinese wedding set of attire called Xiuhefu (simplified Chinese: 秀禾服; traditional Chinese: 繡和服).[1][2] The Xiuhefu typically has an overlapping jacket which closes to the right side (instead of the qungua central closing jacket) which is worn with an A-line skirt (qun) which looks similar to a mamianqun instead of a straight cut skirt.[2] The Xiuhefu is typically embroidered with flowers and birds to symbolize love for whole seasons.[3]

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  A bride in Xiuhefu between Taihedian and Zhonghedian, 2022
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  A bride in Xiuhefu near Xiehemen, 2022

Chinese bride wearing cheongsam with a honggaitou covering her face for wedding ceremony.

The qungua is different from the cheongsam which can also be worn as a Traditional Chinese wedding dress.[3] The qungua is a two-piece garment composed of jacket and skirts while the modern cheongsam is currently a one-piece robe.[4] Prior to the 1930s and the 1940s, the cheongsam was also a two-piece set of garment which was composed of a long robe and was worn with a pair of trousers.[4]