Chinese clothing has approximately 5,000 years of history behind it, but regrettably I am only able to cover 2,500 years in this fashion timeline. I began with the Han dynasty as the term hanfu (meaning: dress of ethnic Chinese people) was coined in that period. Please bear in mind that this is only a generalized timeline of Chinese clothing primarily featuring aristocratic and upper-class ethnic Han Chinese women (the exceptions are Fig. 8 (dancer) and Fig. 11 (maid, due to the fact I couldn’t find many paintings in the Yuan period)).

My resources are mainly the books: 5,000 years of Chinese Costume, China Chic: East Meets West, Changing Clothes in China: Fashion, History, Nation, and Hong Kong Museum of History. 5,000 years of Chinese Costume is an invaluable resource in English (though sadly currently out of print), I would highly recommend this book if you can get your hands on it.