Banbi

Banbi (Chinese: 半臂; lit. 'half-arm'), also known as banxiu (半袖; 'half-sleeves'), is an upper garment item in Hanfu. It was sometimes referred to as beizi (褙子) or half-beizi (i.e. short-sleeved beizi) before the term beizi eventually came to refer to a long-sleeved beizi in the Song dynasty, and referred as dahu in the Yuan dynasty. The banbi is in the form of a waistcoat or outerwear with short sleeves, which could either be worn over or under a long-sleeved ruqun. The style of its collar varies. It can be secured at the front either with ties or a metal button.

There were various forms of banbi throughout history. In present days, the different forms of banbi are generally classified based on their collar shapes: e.g. which is straight or parallel in shape; which is cross-collared in shape; which is U-shaped, which is round-collared in shape; and which is squared-collared in shape.

According to the Chinese records, the was a clothing style, which was invented from the that the Chinese wear. It was first designated as a waistcoat for palace maids, but its popularity soon reached the commoners.

In the Yuan dynasty, the casual clothing for men mainly followed the dress code of the Han people and they wore banbi as a casual clothing item while ordinary women clothing consisted of banbi and ruqun. Han Chinese women also wore a combination of a cross-collar upper garment which had elbow length sleeves (i.e. cross-collar banbi) over a long-sleeved blouse under a skirt with an abbreviated wrap skirts were also popular in Yuan; This form of set of clothing was a style which slightly deviated from the ruqun worn in the Tang and Song dynasties.