In July 2022, Dior’s half length skirt priced at 29000 yuan sparked controversy on social media. Some netizens pointed out that the skirt was similar to the traditional Chinese horse face skirt, while Dior not only did not specify that the dress was inspired by Chinese traditional culture, but also referred to it as “Dior’s iconic silhouette.”.
Although Dior did not respond positively to this incident and removed the dress, the controversy has attracted the attention of people in various fields on Chinese social media. A nationwide discussion about plagiarism and cultural appropriation has sparked enthusiasm among netizens for protecting traditional ethnic costumes.
Recently, Caoxian County, located in Heze City, Shandong Province, has been on the microblog hot search due to the explosive increase in the number of orders for horse face skirts. According to CCTV news reports, during the Spring Festival, Caoxian County’s sales of horse face skirts dominated the Year of the Loong New Year clothes exceeded 300 million yuan.
According to Magic Mirror Insight data, in January 2024, the Hanfu half skirt, which also focuses on horse face skirts, recorded sales of over 300 million yuan on Taobao platforms, accounting for nearly 90% of the entire Hanfu category.
During last year’s Tmall Double 11 shopping festival, Taobao sold over 730000 horse faced skirts, surpassing popular items such as outdoor jackets and old money style knitwear, and was named one of the top 10 items on Taobao in 2023 with the highest ranking in the clothing category.
