Woman's tunic, plain weave silk, silk twill and woven silk and metal thread embroidered with silk in straight stitches, buttonhole and a detatched needlelace stitch, trimmed with couched silk threads and appliqué, faced around the neck with resist, roller and block printed cotton and finished with a cord tie.
A series of short straight and flared panels attached to a simple bodice, the long straight tubular sleeves are set in at right angles. The skirt panels are of 5 different types of silk.
[1] crimson red silk twill for the back alternate panels.
[2] pieced; for sides and back: dark blue [or faded black?] silk satin ground with a woven and brocaded pattern of a large boteh arranged in offset rows, pointing in different directions in alternate rows, with a small inverted tear-drop form in between. These motifs are in silver metal thread on a cream silk core with highlights in [faded] coral red.
[3] plain weave pink silk [red warp and yellow weft] brocaded with a repeating pattern of a hoopoe bird sitting on a flowering twig with a butterfly behind; small Chinese cloud forms are scattered between each bird arranged in offset rows facing in alternate directions according to the row. The pattern motifs are alternately light or dark blue but both with plain green, and metal thread on white silk core.
[4] pieced; dark blue silk satin with hexagonal triple ironed lines, each hexagon containing a blossom [twill binding] in silver metal thread on yellow silk core, outlined in red, with green leaves.
[5] only on front centre panel at the bodice/skirt seam: a plain weave pink silk [red warp, yellow weft] with lozenge triple ironed lines, each lozenge containing a flowering stem [twill binding] in silver-gilt metal thread on a yellow silk core, with highlights in green, pink and light grey.
The bodice, back and front: there is a long front and back slit from the neck to the waist with a sewn cord closing the back slit and a multi-coloured braided silk cord tie at the front. The bodice fabric is a pieced glazed roller printed plain weave cotton with a rust red ground patterned with highly decorative boteh motifs arranged in offset rows, in yellow, white, light and dark blue. A dark blue cord outlined both slits and the neck. The slits are faced with a heavy-weight plain weave cotton with a white ground resist and block printed with a thin black stem bearing rust red blossoms and light green leaves, with one rust red resist dyed/printed selvedge.
The sleeves are made of two silks:[1] crimson red silk twill; [2] dark green plain weave silk, with small triangular gussets of plain weave red and yellow silk and also a band of plain weave black cotton joining the underarm sleeve/gusset to the skirt panel. The ends of the sleeves are decorated with small embroidered isolated boteh and V-motifs in detached needlelace stitch in light and dark blue, white, crimson red, yellow and green. On the central upper cuff area on both sleeves is a large V-motif outlined with black and white couching with a crimson straight stitch 2-lin inscription, which is different on each sleeve.
All front and back panel and sleeve seams are decorated with couched silk cords and with an interlacing stitch [a variation on buttonhole stitch?]. Both sleeve cuffs and the skirt hem are trimmed with a border of three fine lines of toothed cotton applique and twisted black cord sewn along the edge.
Silk Thread: floss [untwisted]
Metal Threads: silver strip open S-wound on cream silk core [see 2], on white silk core [see 3] and silver strip close S-wound on yellow silk core [see 4] and silver-gilt strip open S-wound in yellow silk core [see 5].