Fashion is a cycle. In fact, the items that look very fashionable and modern now were already very fashionable hundreds of years ago. Wu Yuan: Blankets, woolen mats, mats with colorful flowers, Shennong's mats, and Yao's famous blankets are all very common blankets today. The emergence of blankets is a product of China's special climate.
At first, they were used to keep warm, but with the development of society and the progress of the times, the existence and function of blankets gradually changed. In the eyes of the ancients, blankets began to become decorations and symbols of status, and even the production process of blankets began to become complicated, the process became more and more cumbersome, and became a fashionable item for the ancients.
At the beginning, the production of blankets was very simple, just simple animal fur care and weaving. Especially the nomads on the northern grasslands, who lived a life of grazing and migration all year round, had higher requirements for warmth. In addition, a large number of cattle and sheep provided sufficient fur, so fur products were common among nomads.
Compared with the Central Plains, there was a shortage of fur here. Except for some upper-class nobles who could obtain expensive fur, most of the lower-class people could only rely on straw mats and other things to keep warm. Relatively speaking, hay is easy to obtain, cheap, and easy to process, which is very suitable for the needs of the lower class.
In the beginning, the purpose of blankets was to keep warm, so they were not refined, and could be said to be rough and simple, especially straw mats, which were cheap and easy to obtain, and most people discarded them after using them once.
For people in the pre-Qin and even Qin and Han dynasties, blankets were very common items, which was related to the living habits of the ancients. We can clearly see that there are very prominent tables and chairs in the murals of the Wei, Jin, Tang and Song dynasties. For example, in the famous "Night Banquet of Han Xizai", the characters are sitting on the kitchen cabinet.