Overview
The Shang give the first firm evidence of Chinese clothing, and what they show is already the system that lasts: an upper garment and a lower one, worn together, with the collar crossed and closed to the right. Everything in Chinese dress for the next three thousand years is a variation on that arrangement.
Key garments and style
Small jade and bronze figures — the best from the tomb of Fu Hao at Anyang — show a knee-length upper garment with narrow sleeves, the collar crossed and fastened on the right, drawn in by a wide sash. A patterned panel often hangs at the front from the sash, and its presence marks status rather than serving any practical purpose.
This is the yi-shang division, upper garment and lower, which Chinese writers later treated as the foundational form of civilised dress.
Silk was already advanced. Impressions of patterned silk survive on Shang bronzes where cloth was pressed against corroding metal, and they show woven pattern and early embroidery, so figured silk existed at the beginning of the written record. Rank showed through material, colour and jade — jade above all, worked in quantity and worn as pendants, pectorals and hair ornaments.
Transition
The Zhou took this wardrobe and built ritual around it, prescribing what was worn for which ceremony and turning dress into a branch of propriety.