1. Miao clothing is an important part of the Miao cultural system. The historical development process and cultural deposition of the Miao can be seen from the clothing, which reflects the Miao people’s understanding of things and their struggle with nature. Sublimation, the aesthetic consciousness of the Miao people was born here. There is a saying in the Wenshan area: "The Miao people live on the hills, the Zhuang people live on the water heads, and the Han people live on the streets." This proverb roughly outlines the distribution of ethnic minorities in Wenshan, and also reflects the geographical environment and conditions where the Miao people in Wenshan live. The environment they live in lays the foundation for the Miao people to upgrade from perceptual recognition to rational understanding of things in the mountains. Clothing is one of the means of ethnic identification and one of the characteristics that distinguish ethnic groups. It directly embodies a nation's aesthetics or worldview. Wenshan Miao are roughly divided into White Miao, Qing Miao, Hua Miao, Han Miao, etc. According to the classification of Miao costume types by experts in Miao studies, the Miao costumes in Wenshan Prefecture include geometric floral shawl type (i.e. Sichuan, Guizhou and Yunnan type), Maguan style (i.e. cross-stitched pleated skirt type), Qiubei style (i.e. white skirt type) and Open far type (i.e. streamer type). These three clothing styles include the Miao people who call themselves Mengdou, Mengzhao, Mengshi, Mengpai, Mengsou, Mengba, and Mengshu. They all speak Sichuan-Guizhou-Dian sub-dialect Miao, and their cultural customs They are similar, but their costumes have subtle changes and can be distinguished.

Maguan-style Miao costumes are distributed in Maguan, Malipo, Wenshan, and Xichou counties, while Qiubei-style costumes are mainly distributed in Qiubei, Guangnan, Funing, Malipo, Xichou, In Yanshan County, Kaiyuan style is mainly distributed in Yanshan, Qiubei, Wenshan counties and Kaiyuan, Mengzi, Maitreya and other counties and cities in Honghe Prefecture. Although these three styles of clothing have different characteristics, most of their patterns are abstract geometric and spiral patterns based on the shapes of snails, ferns, chicken beaks, crabs or certain animals and plants. The clothing patterns of the Miao people in Wenshan are not as realistic as the Miao clothing patterns in Qiandongnan, Guizhou, and Xiangxi, Hunan. Wenshan is freehand and delicate. So, how do we distinguish between Shimonoseki, Qiubei, and Kaiyuan styles? Due to historical reasons, after the Miao people migrated to the Wenshan area, most of them lived in the mountains with harsh environment. The differences in the costumes of each branch are often related to the climate and environment. Such as the Maguan style clothing. Since this part of the Miao people live in the subtropical mountain valleys south of the Tropic of Cancer, where the climate is hot and there are many mosquitoes, their clothing styles are mostly right-front embroidered tops and single-layer batik pleated skirts. To allow for ventilation, their calves are wrapped with a single layer of embroidered leggings to prevent mosquito bites; the Qiubei-style Miao people live in mountainous areas with higher altitudes north of the Tropic of Cancer and have cold winters. Pleated skirts and calves are wrapped with multiple layers of embroidered leggings to protect against the severe cold; the Kaiyuan-style Miao also live in the gentler mountainous areas north of the Tropic of Cancer, where the cold winds hit them hard in winter. The pleated skirt, coupled with an embroidered trench coat, almost hugs the entire body and has a wide waist. According to historical records, the Miao people moved into Wenshan in small numbers around the Tang Dynasty. In the Ming Dynasty, the Miao people began to move into Qiubei and other counties in Wenshan in large numbers. In the middle and late Qing Dynasty, due to the failure of the Miao people's anti-Qing uprisings in Hunan and Guizhou, the Miao people A large number of people moved to Wenshan from Guizhou and Guangxi, and entered Vietnam, Laos and other countries in Southeast Asia. Since the Miao people were war refugees at that time, they could only hide in the mountains and old forests to thrive after arriving in Wenshan, forming a distribution pattern of "Miao people living on the top of the mountains". It is this kind of living environment and climatic conditions that make the Miao people with the same cultural customs and the same ethnic language Differences in clothing have gradually emerged related to the environment and climate, which has also led to the diversity of Wenshan Miao clothing styles. It can be seen that the difference in natural environment and climatic conditions is an important factor in determining the diversity of Miao costumes in Wenshan.

2. With the progress of society and the development of economy and culture, the life of the Miao people is getting better day by day, and their clothing is also constantly developing and changing. The clothing styles have changed from the original single ones in dark blue and black. It has developed into a colorful style for the sake of tone, and is closer to artistic staging. Miao women believe that the colors existing in nature are the color materials they need, and they should wear them on their bodies to form a beauty that originates from nature and transcends nature. Judging from the development and evolution of Wenshan Miao costumes, their costume styles have developed from the big, fat, wide and loose styles in the 1950s and 1960s to the costume styles that emphasize the length of the costumes of each branch to show off the female curves. The aesthetic realm of beauty, this beauty is the inner self-expressive aesthetic taste engraved in the minds of Miao women and reflected in their clothing. "Nature, as the opposite or supplement of life and society, is the easiest to lead people into this aesthetic realm and induce aesthetic understanding. This is because the external form of nature, whether in terms of showing vitality and vitality, or in all phenomena The unique harmonious and fascinating aspects shown in the diversity can make people feel beautiful and enter into reverie."

Therefore, Miao women understand all the natural objects in the mountains and understand the colorful colors in nature. and understanding, prompting them to reverie about natural objects and embroider them on cloth to form perfect patterns and gain psychological pleasure and satisfaction. This kind of pleasure and satisfaction is the reason for them to feel proud and show off their talents in front of the opposite sex, and to attract the attention of the opposite sex. This is the instinct of animals and the motivation for Miao women's clothing patterns. This is because Miao women must learn cross-stitch embroidery from their elders when they are seven or eight years old. In their minds, if an older girl does not know how to do cross-stitch embroidery, she will be looked down upon and may not even be able to marry into a good family.

It is this ideology that has long dominated Miao women's continuous hunting, processing, and sublimation of natural objects and won praise from the opposite sex or everyone. In addition, the Miao people continue to absorb patterns from other ethnic groups to enrich themselves, but this is not just copying, but through screening and adding patterns that are suitable for the Miao people's own aesthetic characteristics. Some people say that the Miao people are a very adaptable and harmonious nation. No matter how harsh the natural environment, or living among other ethnic groups, they can adapt to and absorb the excellent culture of other ethnic groups and retain their own traditional culture to survive and develop, becoming a global nation today, even moving to Europe and the United States. The Miao people in the country can completely retain their traditional culture and develop rapidly together with the nations in developed countries. This is the precious thing about the Miao people and the way for the Miao people to survive. No matter what the environment, the Miao people are proud to wear their national costumes and show off their excellent traditional culture. Miao costumes, like other works of art, have become works of art with national characteristics through the systematic creation process of Miao women's careful design of styles and patterns, embroidery, and batik. Judging from the form and content of the work, it has distinct aesthetic value and artistic characteristics, and has high art collection value.

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Value

1. Artistic value. Miao costumes go through a series of complex processes such as planting, harvesting, harvesting, spinning, bleaching, and weaving, and then embroidery, batik, and tailoring, and finally become a set of exquisite costumes, which all reflect the diligence and patience of Miao women. The abstract embroidery and batik patterns of Miao women reflect and express their inner emotional world, and at the same time express Miao women's knowledge and understanding of nature and their yearning for a better life. When a Miao girl gives a flower ribbon embroidered by herself to her lover, she does not need to use more gorgeous words to express her loyalty to her lover. She only needs to use the embroidered ribbon to include everything the girl wants to express, truly achieving " The emotional state of "silence is better than sound at this time". The Miao people are a very emotional nation, and their exquisite embroidery and batik craftsmanship more fully illustrate this point.

2. Ornamental value. The Miao embroidery and batik patterns pay special attention to "regularity" and "symmetry", that is, the needle points of cross-stitch embroidery and the dyeing distance during batik have certain specifications and a certain law of change, either equidistant, symmetrical, or Repeat the cycle. The pattern structure is rigorous, giving people a sense of neatness and compactness. Especially for cross-stitch embroidery patterns, it is easy to find the center of the circle, and the coordinate axis is symmetrical whether folded horizontally or vertically. Many patterns are not only symmetrical to the entire large combined pattern, but also symmetrical between large patterns and small patterns. At the same time, it pays great attention to the color matching of patterns, emphasizing the integrity and unity of colors and patterns, which seems to have been accurately calculated in advance. When you appreciate the Miao embroidery batik patterns, can you apply mathematical formulas and geometric principles to the calculations? The isometric and symmetrical relationships between the pattern structures are exactly the same.