Hanfu boasts a wide variety of styles, yet its fundamental designs can be broadly categorized into ceremonial attire and everyday wear. In terms of construction, the main types include the upper‑and‑lower‑separate style (with a short jacket worn on top and a skirt below), the one‑piece style (where the upper and lower garments are sewn together), the upper‑and‑lower‑pants style, and the fully integrated, seamless design.
The upper garment and lower skirt constitute the most fundamental style of Hanfu, and to this day, the Chinese language still uses the terms “yīshang” and “shāng” as a collective designation for clothing. Here, “shāng” refers to the lower skirt, which in ancient times was worn by both men and women. Later, men increasingly adopted robes and shirts as their everyday attire, while the upper‑and‑lower‑garment ensemble was largely preserved in ceremonial dress, such as the mianfu. Meanwhile, women continued to favor this traditional style, known as the ruqun.

The ruqun is one of the earliest and most fundamental garment styles in the history of Chinese dress, and for millennia it was the most common attire worn by Han women. The “ru” refers to a short upper garment, while the “qun” denotes an undergarment. In ancient times, skirts were not worn as outerwear; they were always paired with a layer of clothing beneath. Some scholars contend that the female ensemble of a short jacket over a skirt had already emerged during the Warring States period and persisted until the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, when it came to an end due to the policy of shaving the head and adopting new dress codes.

The “upper-and-lower‑connected” style, also known as the “shenyi system,” encompasses both the curved‑hem robe and the straight‑hem robe, which were popular from the Zhou to the Han dynasties. In ancient times, the garment worn for everyday use was the shenyi; indeed, the shenyi itself came to epitomize the distinctive attire of its era, making it a defining feature of classical dress. When discussing ancient clothing, the shenyi should be considered first. As stated in the “Shenyi” chapter of the Commentary on the Book of Rites: “It is called the ‘shenyi’ because, in other garments, the upper and lower parts—the jacket and skirt—are separate; by contrast, in the shenyi, the jacket and skirt are joined, and the whole piece is deeply enveloping, hence the name ‘shenyi.’” After passing the imperial examinations and attaining official status, scholars would discard their plain white robes and don the lan‑shan—a formal court garment. Moreover, such later Ming‑dynasty styles as the yesa, tie‑li, and ju‑yi likewise belong to the upper-and-lower‑connected category.

Clothing that is cut in one piece from top to bottom includes round‑necked robes, zhiduo, zhishen, and daopao; these garments are characterized by a seamless construction from the shoulders down. The “upper‑garment‑and‑lower‑pants” style, also known as shuige, consists of a short jacket worn over trousers and was a common attire among the working people. Outerwear includes beizi, banbi, pifeng, and hechangyi. The beizi is a type of upper garment that evolved from the banbi or zhongdan. As Cheng Dachang notes in his Yánfánlù, under the entry “Beizi · Zhongchan”: “Today, when people wear official robes, they invariably layer a beizi beneath.”

The beizi is similar to the danru and jia’ao, except that its hem is lengthened, hanging straight down to the feet. In fact, it is the ancient zhongchan; the character “chan” is sometimes written as “dan,” and the style of the zhongdan is precisely what we now call the beizi. It is said to have originated in the Tang dynasty and became particularly popular during the Song dynasty. According to the “Yufu Zhi” section of the Song History: “Women’s long robes and skirts, as well as unmarried women and concubines, all wore beizi.” During the Song and Ming dynasties, empresses often donned red silk beizi as part of their formal attire. The pifeng evolved from the beizi and first appeared in the Ming dynasty.