Overview
The Xia is a dynasty known from texts written long afterwards, and no garment, image or inscription can be securely attached to it. This page is therefore about what was being worn in China at the time the Xia is said to have ruled, drawn from archaeology, and it says so rather than describing a wardrobe that has no evidence behind it.
Key garments and style
Silk was already ancient. Sericulture in China reaches back into the Neolithic, with silk fragments and woven remains from fifth- and fourth-millennium sites, and impressions and residues confirm that reeled silk was being woven well before any dynasty. Hemp supplied ordinary cloth.
The structural arrangement — an upper garment with a separate lower one, wrapped and held by a sash — is the yi-shang division that later Chinese writers treated as the foundation of proper dress, and it is visible in figures from the periods either side.
Jade did the ranking. The Liangzhu culture of the lower Yangtze, earlier than any Xia date, produced worked jade in astonishing quantity for burial and display, so ornament as a marker of status is well established before the written record begins.
Erlitou, the site most often associated with a Xia state, has yielded turquoise-inlaid plaques and bronze that suggest an elite with regalia, though nothing that names itself.
Transition
The Shang left oracle bones, jade figures and bronzes, and with them the first firm picture of ranked Chinese dress.