Tibetan Clothing

Long sleeved, broad robes worn loosely with a diagonal slant, and women's aprons welted with colorful stripes, might be the general idea people have about Tibetan dress. There are, however, marked variances in the clothing of different localities, influenced by the different strands of their religion. Tibet's isolated environment has allowed Tibetan clothing to evolve into a variety of distinctive and characteristic styles.

In Northern Tibet - Mountain Pastures
The weather in northern Tibet, where herdsmen lead a nomadic life in natural mountain pastures, is bitterly cold. As there is a huge disparity between day and night time temperatures, local herdsmen wear a furred robe all year round, which doubles as a quilt at night. In daytime, people wear their left sleeve only, or sometimes wear neither, and tying the two sleeves at the waist. Today, the fashion of wearing only the left sleeve, while exposing the right shoulder, is immediately recognizable as Tibetan dress style.

The Tibetan furred robe is very bulky and said to have enough room to accommodate a five or six-year old child in winter. It has no pockets, but being fastened at the waist there is plenty of room around the ribcage to carry daily necessities.

Clothes worn by herdsmen in pasture areas are distinctive for their decorative welts. They are also hemmed in black velveteen, corduroy, or woolen cloth at the front and lower edges, and cuffs, and the women wear aprons decorated with colorful cloth stripes. The vista of herdsmen, roaming about under the blue sky, white clouds, green grass, snowy mountains, among their sheep and cattle, is a sight more beautiful than any landscape painting.

In Southern Tibet - Farmers
Tibetan farmers, who live in the warm and damp climate of southern Tibet, make their clothes from tweed, a kind of hand-woven woolen cloth. Both men and women wear their clothes buttoned to the right. Men's clothes are hemmed in colorful cloth or with silk at the collar, cuffs, front, and lower edges. Other than during the cold winter, women's outerwear is sleeveless. The length of a Tibetan robe generally exceeds the wearer's height, and when worn, the waist is lifted and fastened with a belt.

In Lhasa and Shannan
The weather in Lhasa and Shannan Prefecture is warmer and damper still. Here the men mainly wear double-layered robes, and women dress in close-fitting robes and long-sleeved shirts, with brightly decorated aprons at the waist.

The apron is one of the favorite items of clothing for Tibetan women. According to Tibetan custom, they are the privileged garments for married women only; single girls do not generally wear them. Gonggar County in the Jiedexiu area of Shannan Prefecture is synonymous with aprons, having produced them for 500 or 600 years.

In Local Festivals
Festivals are the best opportunity to observe and enjoy Tibetan clothes. Nagqu Town in northern Tibet holds a horse race every year, and Tibetans gather at this fair dressed in their best. Riders usually wear robes of azure, dark blue or pale green, with red knickerbockers, or blue or black sports trousers, and boots. Male spectators wear long furred robes in black, blue, or yellow, hung with finely decorated Tibetan knives, flints, snuff bottles, and silver coins at the waist. Women wear hats hemmed in colors that match the hemming on all their other garments, right down to the boots. They wear gold, silver, and copper adornments on their long braids, large earrings and necklaces, and strings of metal coins decorating their waists that jingle musically in the breeze.