In the Ming Dynasty, the rockhopper was the ceremonial crown worn by the empress when she accepted books, visited temples and attended court meetings. Its shape inherited the system of Song Dynasty, and developed and perfected it to make it more elegant. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the colorful crowns used by ordinary women as ornaments were also called rockhopper crowns, which were mostly used for weddings.
It was very popular for women to wear crowns in Song Dynasty, including white-horned crowns, group crowns and equal-shoulder crowns. The rockhopper in the costume system of the Song Dynasty was developed on the basis of the group crown. Several major changes from the Tang Dynasty to Song Shifeng and the evolution of Phoenix as a crown ornament are all contributing factors. The rockhopper was officially designated as a formal dress, and it was brought into the imperial concubine's crown service system from the Song Dynasty. According to the Records of the History of Song Dynasty, empresses and concubines in the Northern Song Dynasty were required to wear crested rockhoppers when they wrote letters or held ceremonies such as He Jingling Palace.
Empresses in the Ming Dynasty offered sacrifices to the imperial court, which inherited the Song system and also wore a phoenix crown. The phoenix crown of the early Ming Dynasty was designed with reference to the dragon and phoenix flower hairpin crown of the queen of the Song Dynasty. Its shape is similar to that of the Song Dynasty, but it has developed.
Compared with the previous dynasties, the crown shape of the Qing empress has changed greatly. The first thing is that dragons are no longer decorated on the crest. It is recorded in the Qianlong Dynasty's "Qing Yu Li Li Guan Fu" that the queen "has a crown phoenix, the top of which is four, with a big east pearl on the top and three east pearls on the bottom, with a golden eagle as three phoenixes, each phoenix decorated with three east pearls, and seven golden phoenix on the left and right sides before the crown."
Interpretation of related sources
Feng Chai, Feng Jue and other phoenix-shaped first clothes are the predecessors of Guan Feng. According to reports, the palace concubines inserted Feng Chai, which originated from Qin Shihuang. China's ancient and modern notes: The first emperor called "the gold and silver as the phoenix head and the tortoise shell as the foot".
By the Han Dynasty, the Empress Dowager and the Empress Dowager Hall had begun to use the phoenix as their headdress. During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, walking and hairpin often adopted the image of a phoenix bird with a bead in its mouth. With the wearer's gentle walking, the phoenix bird swayed on the bun.
Reference to the above content: Baidu Encyclopedia-rockhopper