Hairpins, as jewelry, are worn on the head, which not only beautifies the bun, but also symbolizes the auspicious words made of hairpins and the beautiful pursuit of expressing feelings and wishes. As far as the hairpin ornaments left by empresses in Qing dynasty are concerned, the diversity of forms and patterns is beyond the previous generation. A deformed bead "Boy Ping An" hairpin once exhibited in the Treasure Hall is a rare treasure. Hairpin is an exceptionally deformed pearl, about five centimeters long, and looks like a dancing urchin. On the left side of the deformed bead, a sapphire vase is decorated, and several thin red coral branches are inserted in the bottle mouth to set off the word "An". There is a A Jin Ruyi handle behind the urchin, which is connected with the Aquarius into a whole, and the head of Jinleisi Ganoderma lucidum is exposed on the right side of the urchin. Judging from the urchin decoration, it is a boy. When the whole wishful thinking is linked together, it is called "the boy is safe" or "the boy is happy and safe". The moral ethics of feudal society pays attention to the "three cardinal principles and five permanents", that is, the monarch is the minister's cardinal principle, the husband is the wife's cardinal principle and the father is the child's cardinal principle. The emperor's wives and concubines, of course, take the emperor as the key link and want to have more children for the royal family, so that the royal family can have a strong blood line and the imperial power can be passed down forever. The intention of this hairpin is self-evident. However, the facts are not so satisfactory. Twenty-four of the thirty-five sons of Emperor Kangxi in the Qing Dynasty grew up, and the princes fought for power and profit, so that Emperor Kangxi died before he was seventy years old. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, two emperors, Tongzhi and Guangxu, had queens and concubines, but no children, which made their mother Cixi listen to politics twice and ruled China for half a century.

Cixi is also a person who loves beauty. She likes gorgeous clothes all her life, especially rubies, red corals, jade peony hairpin and butterfly hairpin. In the 11th year of Xianfeng, Yining died in chengde mountain resort. Cixi became a widow at the age of 27. According to the custom of the Han nationality, the wife should let her husband Dai Xiao go for 27 months. The hair clasp on your head should be made of uncut bone or pure silver. Cixi ordered the factory to produce a batch of headdresses such as silver gray jade and thymelaeaceae. In February of the first year of Tongzhi, this batch of plain clothes jewelry was sent to Cixi one after another. Cixi wears it painfully every day. After the release expires, all the jewels are put in the cold palace. Cixi put on her exquisite and luxurious headdress again, and this habit remained until her later years.

The queen wears hairpins seasonally. They wear golden hair clips in winter and spring. In the long summer, they put on gold hair pins and jade hair pins. Until beginning of winter became a food hairpin. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, Ms. Yu Deling, who worked as a female translator beside Cixi, recalled that April 24, 1903 was the long summer in the lunar calendar/KLOC-0, and "on this day, everyone had to change the golden hairpin and jade seal". On this day, Cixi gave the jade hairpin to Yu Deling's mother, sister and herself. "The queen mother chose a beautiful hairpin for my mother, saying that all three queens had worn it, and two beautiful ones were given to our sisters, saying that these two were a pair, one was often worn by the queen mother and the other was worn by herself when she was young." At the end of the Qing Dynasty, most of the hairpins on the queen's head were relics handed down by ancestors, and all the queens in the palace regarded them as treasures. People that Cixi likes can be rewarded at will, and there is no constraint. But Emperor Guangxu hated a Hosta so much that he would never forgive him until he died. After the failure of the Reform Movement of 1898 in the late Qing Dynasty, Cixi imprisoned Guangxu in Yingtai. One day, the Jade Dragon Queen went to see Guangxu, and Guangxu was very disgusted. Although he and Yulong are nominally husband and wife, there is no mutual affection between husband and wife. Therefore, when Guangxu saw Yulong, he was so disgusted that he couldn't breathe evenly. Guangxu didn't want to see the arrival of Yulong, and even said, "Kneel down!" Yulong was very angry and pretended not to hear. Guangxu saw that she didn't leave, and his hands trembled with anger, trying to push her out. I didn't expect him to push too hard and hit the hairpin on Long Yufa's bun. Hosta fell to the ground and immediately shattered. This Hosta is a relic of the Qianlong period. It was passed on to Cixi, and she gave it to Yulong. As soon as Jiang Yu saw it, she cried and told Cixi about it. Cixi was furious and hated Guangxu even more. From then on, she sent people to closely monitor Guangxu, sent meals and cold soup, and treated Guangxu as a sinner. Political differences made the relationship between Cixi and Guangxu like strangers, and a jade hairpin became the fuse of their mother-child relationship, and Guangxu's early death became a historical necessity.

In the folk, generally speaking, the rich use jade and silver, and the poor use bones. Silver hair clips are also essential for ordinary people to marry their daughters. Women cherish it very much, because it is a more valuable thing to accompany them, some of which will never be lost or damaged. Most of the hairpins widely used by the people are bone, so people are always used to calling them "bone hairpins". Hairpins are usually three or four inches long, and there are some longer ones, but they are rare. The hair clip has a thin head and a round knot at the tail. The thin head is easy to insert into the bun, and the small protrusions at the tail can make the bun strong. There is also a flat hairpin with thick ends and thin middle, mostly made of silver and copper. The two sides of the flat hairpin are divided into two sides, the front is decorated with flowers and auspicious patterns, the back is light, and the whole shape is slightly bent inward. The flat hairpin has obvious decorative significance, and it shines when fixed on the hair. Hairpin is an indispensable ornament for many ethnic women to modify their hair. It is an effective product for fixing women's hair and hairdressing, which is the main reason why it has been used for thousands of years.

The headdress flower is jewelry developed from hairpin. It consists of a flower head and a pin. Because the hair style of Han women developed from soft wing head to two handles, then to shelf head, and finally to big wings, the hair style on the head became wider and wider, so a kind of headdress with a large coverage-headdress flower was produced. Most headdresses are made of pearls and precious stones, so they need a stable support, that is, some corresponding changes have been made on the basis of hairpins. For example, a cross-shaped cross brace is welded at the top of the pin, and the cross-shaped cross is used as the main body of the headdress. Decorative flowers, branches and leaves, birds and animals, insects and butterflies, auspicious symbols and so on surround the main body. Even if the primary and secondary relationship of composition is obvious, the headdress flower with treasures as raw materials can share the load reasonably. When Han women comb their hair, they wear a big flower between the two heads, which is called headdress. Some women will also choose two kinds of flowers with the same color and shape to be inserted at both ends of the two heads, commonly known as pressed hair flowers, also known as pressed temples.

Besides flags and hairpins, Han women generally like to decorate their hair with flowers. Wearing big flowers on your head has always been a traditional custom of the Han nationality. Pu Zhiyuan recorded in the Diary of Jehol that Han women's temples are full of wild flowers, regardless of age, and "over 50 years old" means "flowers are tied in a bun and golden flowers are precious". "Even if you are nearly seventy years old, even if you are bald and shiny, you will still be full of flowers." In northern Liaoning, some Han women even put a small bottle of water in their hair bun and put some flowers in the bottle, which is full of vitality, reflecting their strong pursuit of beauty. In the early Qing Dynasty, the country was on the rise, and people's living consumption remained largely in the traditional mode. In order to satisfy the desire for beauty, Han women often wear seasonal flowers on their heads, and there is another kind called "honeysuckle wisp". In other words, the table is made of paper tires, and some are made of copper wire. They are packaged into all kinds of flowers, no more than two or three inches high, and the largest is nearly a foot, decorated with extremely delicate pearls and jade. In the early years of Shunzhi, the families of the Han military camp often used this honeysuckle as a decoration on the bun. With the establishment of politics and the consolidation of state power in Qing Dynasty, the headdress worn by Han women also improved their social status. Although flowers can be seen everywhere, women prefer headdress flowers with precious texture. These women grow their hair to show off, not to be beautiful.

At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the national treasury was embarrassed and the national strength declined, which naturally affected people's lives. In order to save money, the headdress flower changed from pure gold to gold plating, the jewelry flower became velvet flower, silk flower, even paper flower and grass flower, and even the headdress flower with delicate feathers was dyed with madder. Feather Diancui jewelry has been circulating in China for a long time, and its technological level has been continuously improved, reaching its peak in Qianlong period. It is famous for its gorgeous colors and splendor, but it is very complicated to make. It is understood that a base is made of gold and silver pieces into a flower shape, and then a circle of raised grooves is welded with gold wire along the flower-shaped edge of the pattern. Apply an appropriate amount of glue to the concave part in the middle, cut off the kingfisher's feathers with small scissors, and gently arrange the feathers on the glued base with tweezers. Kingfisher's hair is emerald blue and snow blue. However, kingfishers are petite and have soft feathers. It takes a lot of kingfishers to make a headdress. Because the kingfisher's fur is bright and shiny, and the shiny convex edge, it can produce different effects from other jewelry when worn on the head.

At present, most of the metal jewelry collected in the Forbidden City in Beijing is in Qianlong period. For example, ruby inlaid with rice bead flower, pearl inlaid with three friends flower, sapphire dragonfly flower, red coral cat iris flower, gold inlaid with pearl jewel flower, gold inlaid with rice bead flower, coral inlaid with turquoise gourd flower and so on. , are made of welding backing technology. It not only follows the traditional skills of history, but also highlights the characteristics of Qianlong period, so that the eyes, tentacles, beards and branches of insects and birds are burned into elastic springs with fine copper wires, which move gently and sway from side to side, making the image lively and dynamic. There is also a kind of metal welding as the base and pin, and the jewelry flowers are tied into a bundle of headdresses with copper wires, which is also loved by queens because of its flexibility. It is made of copper wires with different thicknesses into flower branches and leaf branches, and then the petals made of precious stones and the small holes at the end of the leaves are strung into different single branches such as flowers, stamens, flowers and leaves, and the branches are tied into a bundle according to the figure, and finally concentrated on a thick copper wire, which is fastened with a needle. This headdress is very effective on the head and adds a lovely charm to women. In addition, metal inlaid headdress and gold silk headdress are also loved by predecessors because of their vivid image and fine workmanship, which makes future generations marvel.

Han women's favorite headdress is velvet flower, especially when their daughters get married, they must wear red velvet flower on their heads, which is auspicious. It is said that "velvet flower" in Chinese is similar to "splendor" in Manchu, so wearing velvet flower means prosperity. As long as conditions permit, Han women should wear velvet flowers not only on the wedding day, but also all the year round, in order to be homophonic and auspicious. In particular, seasonal velvet flowers should be worn in order: beginning of spring wears a spring flag, Qingming wears willow branches, Duanyang wears wormwood, Mid-Autumn wears osmanthus, Chongyang wears Cornus officinalis, and winter wears gourd flowers. The headdresses of concubines in the Qing Dynasty, as well as a large number of velvet flowers, silk flower and silk flower, all exist in the world. These flowers are harmonious in color and rich in halo levels, which can be called "confused flowers". It is said that Yang Guifei in the Tang Dynasty had a mole on her temple, and she often wore large flowers on her temple to cover it up. Because flowers wither easily, people developed the color of flowers to make silk flower. This process is constantly developing, and the finer it is, the finer it is. The headdresses made of velvet, silk and silk left over from the Qing Dynasty include white, pink and pink peony flowers, pale yellow, medium yellow and dark yellow chrysanthemums, white, lotus root and snow blue Chinese rose flowers, pink and white plum blossoms, etc. It has lasted for a hundred years and is still glamorous and pleasing to the eye.

Hairpins and hairpins have similar purposes, and they are both essential jewelry for women's hair bun. A double-pin or triple-pin hairpin is more firmly fixed on the bun than a hairpin. The ancient hairpin is similar to the hairpin shape, and it is naturally connected by the pin of the hairpin head. For example, Yuyanchai, which was popular in Han Dynasty, is one of them. According to legend, when Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty built the Zhaoling Pavilion, a goddess left a jade hairpin. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty gave the jade hairpin to his favorite concubine Zhao. Decades later, Zhao Han succeeded to the throne, and all the women in the harem combed their hair in fashion, but they didn't have ideal hairstyles and looked around. Once, the ladies-in-waiting saw that the jade hairpin was not carved or decorated, so they wanted to destroy it and make a new one. But the next day when I opened the hairpin box, I saw a flying swallow soaring into the sky. The beautiful image of swallows taking off and their tails forked greatly inspired the women in the palace, so they made their hair pins into the shape of flying swallows. Swallow's tail is very suitable for being inserted in a bun, so it is named Yanchai. With the wide use of headdresses, headdresses of various textures and shapes appear constantly. The most common one is the phoenix head hairpin, which consists of a hairpin head and a pin. At present, in the Forbidden City in Beijing, there are still women's clothes worn by concubines in the Qing Dynasty. Most of them are divided into two categories, one is that women's hair accessories are exquisite, and the other is that women's hair accessories are plain.