The origin of shirts
During the Zhou Dynasty in China, there were already shirts called "zhongyi" and later "zhongdan". In the Han Dynasty, a shirt that was close to the body was called a toilet bowl. The name 'shirt' was already used in the Song Dynasty. It is now called a Chinese style shirt.
A shirt originally referred to a short sleeved single garment used to complement a formal dress, that is, a shirt without sleeves. In the Song Dynasty, there were sleeveless tops, with short and small shirts lining the inside and longer shirts worn on the outside. For example, in the book "Lin Jiaotou's Snowy Mountain God" in "Water Margin", Lin Chong "shook all the snow on his body and took off the white cloth shirt covering his upper body". In ancient times, women wearing short tops were called "shirts" or "half clothes". The Tang Dynasty literary figure Yuan Zhen wrote in his poem "Miscellaneous Memories" the line "Remembering makes the clothes thin".
At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, due to the European style spreading eastward, people began to wear suits, putting shirts inside suits as shirts, and tying ties with a middle opening, usually five buttons.
European History
In the 16th century BC, the 18th Dynasty of ancient Egypt already had shirts, which were collarless, sleeveless waistcoats. The shirts worn by Normans in the 14th century had collars and sleeves. In 16th century Europe, embroidery was popular on the collar and chest of shirts, or decorative lace on the collar, cuffs, and chest. At the end of the 18th century, the British wore high collar shirts. During the reign of Queen Victoria, high necked shirts were phased out and replaced with modern stand up collar Western style shirts. In the 1840s, Western style shirts were introduced to China. Originally designed for men, shirts were gradually adopted by women in the 1950s and have now become one of the commonly used clothing items.
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