How should you dress for the Lunar New Year?

The Lunar New Year kicks off tonight on its eve with a large family feast, and rolls through February 15 when it concludes with a Lantern Festival. This celebration is full of singing, dragon dancing, lots and lots of food, and an astonishing amount of the color red. But have you ever wondered why that color is such a big part of the event? And did you know that a key part of celebrating the Lunar New Year is by donning new clothes?

To help answer these questions and more, we spoke with Zhaojin Zeng, assistant professor of history at Duke Kunshan University in China's Jiangsu province, who specializes in the economic, business, and industrial history of modern China and the world, to unpack some of the relations the Lunar New Year has with clothing.

What is the Lunar New Year?

The Lunar New Year, also known as the Spring Festival and Chinese New Year, celebrates the reset of the traditional lunisolar Chinese calendar. The lunisolar calendar—based on both the phases of the moon and the positions of the sun—ends with winter and begins with spring and is also an important tool used by farmers for tracking their harvests. According to Zeng, this has ties to the Lunar New Year’s origins: The traditional Chinese Spring Festival is celebrated to mark the end of the winter season, coinciding with a time in which farmers are less busy and could celebrate a successful harvest.

To bring in the New Year, festivities are often centered around getting rid of the old and embracing the new. Most families are cleaning their homes and reuniting with each other in time for Lunar New Year’s Eve, as well as purchasing new items, foods, and clothing. Like Christmastime in the West, China experiences an economic boom in shopping during this occasion.

Of course, the Spring Festival isn’t exclusive to China—countries like South Korea and Vietnam have their own celebrations as Seollal and Tết Nguyên Đán, respectively—and the Lunar New Year is often celebrated by people of Asian descent all over the world.

What does new clothing have to do with the Lunar New Year?

Generally speaking, the start of the New Year means bringing in new things, and welcoming the coming spring with fresh clothing is a big part of that process. Traditionally, Zeng says, farmers would make new clothing for the season, but today these items are, of course, purchased. “Nowadays, people are busier, so the Lunar New Year became one of the many public holidays to become more and more commercialized. People still buy new clothes, but they also buy luxury products as well. People still eat great food, but they also buy more expensive foods as well.”

Zeng pointed to a $2,300 “Gucci Tiger tote bag” from Gucci’s latest Lunar New Year collection as one of the ways in which the holiday has become more of a lux spending spree, although he notes the product is not the best purchase for the occasion due to its design. It doesn’t wholly embrace three traits Zeng believes makes for solid Lunar New Year garbs: the Chinese zodiac, the color red, and gold accents.

Although wearing new clothes, from head-to-toe—underwear included—is a way to celebrate the New Year, buying special garbs specifically for the occasion should focus on the above trifecta. This is the year of the Tiger, which means clothing that highlights that Chinese zodiac sign is a great option for wear and can be found in abundance, typically on garments that are red and accented with gold.

Two traditional Chinese garments can be found during the Lunar New Year: the cheongsam (also known as a qipao), a high-necked, tight-fitting dress with short sleeves and side slit skirt—a men's sized version adapts this as a shirt—and the hanfu, which is a two-piece consisting of a unisex shirt with long lapels and a long-skirt that starts above the bosom, worn by those of Han Chinese descent and often accompanied by a robe. Although these two styles are worn during the celebration, it's okay to wear whatever clothing you'd like—T-shirts, jeans, and hats are all fine choices, so long as they're new.

What colors should you wear, and which should you avoid?

The reason the Lunar New Year is so vividly red is that the color is associated with good fortune, prosperity, and luck in Chinese culture. During times of celebration, like weddings and public holidays, red can be found pretty much everywhere throughout China. The Lunar New Year is perhaps the pinnacle of this color in public.

“Red is used for very specific occasions,” says Zeng. “In traditional Asian ceremonies, red is worn only when good things happen—think, weddings and marriages. But red is also found in abundance when gifting.” Zeng says that putting red banners on doors, or using red papers to wrap candies or rice cakes in for gifts, is seen as an extra measure of good fortune. People dress in the vibrant color for the Lunar New Year because they’d like to bring good luck with them into the changing seasons.

Two colors within Chinese culture, however, should be avoided: black and white, which are traditionally colors worn in times of mourning. Wearing these colors during Lunar New Year celebrations can cause confusion among those who are celebrating, as they may think you’re in town for a funeral or trying to convey some sort of non-verbal negative message.

However, Zeng says that showing black and white sparingly is okay. If you’re wearing a red garment with black or white lining, for example, that’s fine—so long as the primary color of your garb is red.

What’s even better as an accent color is gold, says Zeng. This metallic hue is considered prestigious. When dressing for the occasion, stick with reds with some sort of gold undertone and you’ll look appropriately festive.