It's been a little over two years since I last worked on this. I got a little burnt out, and didn't have the motivation to try to make an Anna from Frozen coloring page. Sometimes, when there's lots of historical evidence, it's even harder to make these drawings because it raises the chance that you'll miss some tiny--but really important--detail.
This year, though, I'll be teaching a history class called "Historical Disney Princesses," where kids learn about what life would have been like for the princess if she were real, where she would have lived, what she might have worn, what they used for transportation, what their houses looked like, when they would have lived, and what they would have eaten. And, then they do a living history craft or activity related to the time period and movie.
Doing this research was hard on many levels. Much of the resources I needed were in Chinese, and I don't speak Chinese! Many search terms showed nothing when I used the English translation. I didn't learn much about China in school, or college. I had very little foundational knowledge to build off of. And, this is one of the more confusing --and less studied--dynasties and time periods in China. There were many waring states during this time, and...and a lot of documents were destroyed because of it. And, clothing styles were very different in the Southern (Han) Dynasties (there's more surviving artwork in the south. I didn't realize initially that I was using some southern archeological finds compared to northern ones.).
The style is so different because the Northern Wei where the Xianbei (a proto-Mongolian steppe people), but their emperor wanted to have them become more Han Chinese by giving up certain ways of life, intermarrying with the south, and changing their surnames, as well as banning their traditional hufu clothing.
The above is an example of, no matter how much you study, you still find more things you don't know! When I drew Mulan in her cavalry outfit down below, I didn't realize that the direction the clothing closed was part of the style! (More on the Xianbei hufu)
This time period is also hard because the Northern Wei was also where Buddhism was entering China, and many Northern Wei emperors were Buddhists, living in cave palaces. Many of the statues from the Buddhist temples have a distinctly different style (imported from India?) and might not have been what people were wearing at the time...especially since tomb paintings and statues have a very different look!
This video is about the beginning of the Western Wei (which came after the Northern Wei, with their decendents), and shows the strong Buddhist influences in this area and this time. The empress even became a Buddhist nun for a while!
I based Mulan's hanfu attire largely on clay figurines and one tomb painting. I based the clothing color from extant examples found here:
The wide color showing the white undershirt is very indicative of this era, and apparently isn't seen in other dynasties and times.
As for Mulan's soldier outfit, I based it largely off of clay cavalry figures, since Mulan buys and rides a horse in the original ballad. I went for no shoulder armor, since most of the figures I found did not have the shoulder armor. I did use some inspiration from general soldier figures, for a better look at the clothing. Note the flowing pants. I'm not sure what is going on with the underlayer beneath the kuxi top (I'm hoping I'm using the correct terms for all the clothing, but I'm likely botching it up quite a bit!).
I really appreciated this historical reenactment video of Mulan, it was really helpful to see the clothing in action. That video was also part of the reason I drew Mulan without the shoulder armor....it was easier to draw because I had an actual high definition reference.
I think each of these princesses is hard to draw historically, and often for different reasons. I just finished drawing what I hope is a historically more accurate Merida. The movie makers said the movie takes place in the 1000's Scotland, and I placed her in the Highlands (the lowlands seem Anglo-Saxon during this time). Researching her made me realize just how little I knew about Scotland...and how little is actually known about Scotland in the early-mid medieval era.
I was surprised to find that much of Scotland at this time was full of--from what we understand--people who came from Ireland. Since we have very few extant garments from Ireland OR Scotland during this time, it's hard to know what they wore...and how much their fashion was was influenced by Viking invaders and settlers.
I found this resource super helpful: Early Gaelic Dress. They show a lot of primary sources, including this quote from the Tain bo Cuailnge:
A beautiful purple cloak she had, and silver fringe to it, and a gold brooch, and she had on her a léine of green silk with a long hood [remember that this may be more like a draping collar and not a true hood] embroidered with red gold, and wonderful clasps of gold and silver on her breasts and shoulders. The sunlight was falling on her so that the gold and green silk were shining out. Two plaits of hair she had, four locks in each plait, and a bead at the point of every lock, and the color of her hair was like yellow flags of satin. . .
They mention that there really is only one painting of a Scottish/Gaelic woman, and that is Mary from the Book of Kells:
Mary, depicted in the Book of Kells. 9th Century Scotland and Ireland
I also found this carving of a 9th century Pict maiden:
I'm pretty sure Merida should have her hair braided, as it seems that unmarried women are always mentioned with plaited hair. But, I just couldn't find an easy way to braid her locks, and it just seems counter to her whole attitude to have her hair braided if she could avoid it.
I used colors for Merida's clothing from pictures of green and teal dyed wool that's dyed with woad. I felt safe using dark hues like those in the movie, since she is the daughter of the King and would have access to deeply dyed cloth.
I modeled her broach off of the Hunterston brooch:
I based her shoes and belt off of the examples shown in Early Gaelic Dress. I kept her cloak and leine/tunic simple. The linen color at the her cuffs and hem could either be a shift (couldn't find info on if they wore shifts) or trim (trim is shown in the book of Kells). I also figured that if I kept things more simple, it'd be more likely to be accurate than if I'd tried embellishing it. Simple garb like this seems to be pretty common in many places and times during the medieval period.
I probably should have tried to make sure the bow was historically accurate, but I was rather burnt out by this point.
And now for Moana! I'm conflicted about what time to place the movie. The producers (and even Maui) say it was 2000 years ago. But, since the movie takes place at the end of "The Long Pause" in migration, I'm thinking that it should be around the year 800. The Polynesian peoples expanded out from Micronesia until about the year 900BC, getting as far as Samoa and Tonga, but then stopped exploring for about 1000 years. This is called "The Long Pause" (source). After The Long Pause, they began exploring again, making it to places like Hawaii and Easter Island (and maybe South America!) by around 900AD.
Because of that, I think setting Moana at around 800AD makes the most sense, rather than 1st century AD. Thankfully, though, the time doesn't really impact what she wears...because our evidence for what they were wearing in the 1st century is the same as for the 9th century. There's no extant ancient clothing. We only have oral history, early depictions by colonizers, and current clothing traditions to go after.
This Disney movie, thankfully actually did their research and asked indigenous Polynesians for examples af textiles and information about clothing. Her clothing in the movie is, by and large (as far as I can tell) pretty accurate. The reds in her clothing should be ochre or rust red, rather than bright red--unless the red is coming from berries or feathers. Red was a royal color, and red feathers were worn by chieftain's daughters , especially in ceremonies.
Taipa feathers
She probably wouldn't have been out adventuring in her fancy feathers. It also seems that she should probably be shirtless (as shirts seemed to have been introduced by Christian missionaries to protect the women's modesty). I chose to keep her clothed on top, but with tapa fabric that was made from beaten bark and stamped with designs, as was done historically.
I based her outfit largely on pictures of the Chieftain's daughter's ceremonial outfits, as I was able to find the most information about those:
You can see the strips of fabric on her skirt shown in the above photos. I used this video below to understand how those strips were strung together an worn:
I based the design on her top on this tapa fabric:
I know Megara isn't an "Official Disney Princess," but she was a great excuse to learn about Ancient Greece, and really easy to do because Greek styles stayed largely the same for hundreds of years, and there's even a mosaic of her from Greece (albeit during the Roman times.)
Niftily enough, the color of her gown is about as purple as mosaics get, and she was a princess, so I felt pretty good about keeping her in her movie-hued purple gown.
A lot of Hellenistic hair styles were up-dos, but, I found enough sculptures and figurines with hair down that I felt good about having hers down. I did tone down the height of her hair, and tuck it back in the style of the statues.
Of course, the actual myth of Hercules takes place around the time of the Trojan War, around 1300-1200 BC. Clothing was quite different back then, as it was the Mycenean period! But, the movie is obviously placed during the early part of the Roman dominion of Greece, so I went with that time frame. Also, clothing/architecture/etc looked rather different in the Mycenean period than the Ancient Greek period.
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