Shēnyī (深衣)

The ancient Chinese placed great symbolic importance between the division of an upper garment, called a yi, and a lower garment, called a chang. The separation of the garments was meant to represent the greater order of the heavens and the earth. In the Warring States Period, the two-piece yichang evolved into a long crossed-collar one-piece garment called the shenyi. The shenyi still had a seam at the waist, to represent the symbolic divide between the heavens and the earth.