Lunar New Year Outfit Guide

Lunar New Year — the Spring Festival in China, Seollal in Korea, Tết in Vietnam, and a homecoming across the world's diaspora — falls between late January and mid-February and is, by participation, the largest dressing occasion on earth. Families travel home, elders are visited in order, children receive red envelopes, and everybody, by long custom, wears something new. This guide covers the colours, the garments and the symbolism; the principles that apply at every festival are in our cultural and festival outfit guide.

Red and Gold: The Colours of the Season

No festival on earth has a clearer colour code. Red is luck, joy and protection — legend gives the colour its job: Nian, the beast of the old year, was driven away by red, noise and light, and red has guarded the new year ever since. Gold — and its clothing cousin, bright yellow — is wealth and prosperity. Between them they cover the season's wardrobe: red dresses and jackets, gold embroidery and jewellery, red sweaters on every child in the family photograph. Our red clothing guide shows the colour's full range if you are building an outfit around it.

New Clothes for a New Year

The new-clothes custom at Lunar New Year is symbolism worn on the body: the year starts fresh, so the clothes do too. Children traditionally get new outfits head to toe; adults buy at least something new, and the shops do their briskest trade of the year in the weeks before. One charming survival: people whose Chinese zodiac sign matches the incoming year — their ben ming nian — traditionally wear red every day of it for luck, down to red socks, belts and underwear, often given by their elders. You do not need a zodiac reason to join the red, but if it is your year, the family will expect to see it.

The Great Garments

Qipao and cheongsam. The mandarin-collared, frog-fastened dress — qipao in Mandarin, cheongsam in Cantonese — is the season's signature for women, in festival red and gold brocade above all. Our cheongsam and qipao guide covers its construction, fit and fabrics; a matching embroidered jacket, the tangzhuang, is the men's traditional counterpart.

Hanbok. For Seollal, Korea's Lunar New Year, the hanbok comes out: the cropped jeogori jacket and full chima skirt for women, jeogori with baji trousers and often a vest or overcoat for men, in the garment's famous saturated colours. Seollal includes sebae, a formal bow to elders — a hanbok is designed to kneel and rise in, which tells you something about dressing for the day's actual movements.

Áo dài. Vietnam's Tết is dressed in the áo dài — the long, split tunic worn over loose trousers, in reds, golds and floral prints for the season. It is worn by women and men alike, and Tết photographs are a river of them.

What to Avoid

The avoid-list is short, symbolic and worth respecting because your hosts observe it. Worn, faded or torn-looking clothes contradict the fresh start the festival is about — distressed denim can sit this one out. Head-to-toe black or white echoes mourning dress in several of these traditions; either colour as an accent is unremarkable, but a full monochrome outfit reads funereal at a new year table. And on the day itself, the custom is to keep the new clothes' luck intact — which is one more reason the season's photographs show nobody in yesterday's laundry.

Family Rounds and Photographs

The practical shape of the day: a reunion dinner the night before, then days of visiting — elders first, in order of seniority — with children dressed up to receive red envelopes and everyone dressed to be photographed, constantly. Neat, respectful and bright serves every stop on the round; formal traditional dress serves the big family gatherings. Guests join where they are invited, dressed as for any festival in this series: festive, considered, and glad to be there. For the other New Year on the calendar, our New Year's Eve outfit guide covers December 31 in the same spirit.