Cultural Fashion: The Painted Lady Hat
The hat that the Painted Lady, both real and fake, wears is known as a mìlí (幂蓠) in Mandarin Chinese and an ichimegasa (市女笠) in Japanese. Both refer to a woven, wide-brimmed hat with a body-covering veil attached. The style originated from the nomadic steppe people of Northwest Asia and was later adopted by Chinese culture during the Sui Dynasty (581–618) and introduced to Japan during the Tang Dynasty (618-907).
The hat was mostly worn by women of noble or aristocratic birth in both China and Japan. In China, the hat was especially popular among the ladies of nobility who rode horses on the public roads. The purpose of the hat became both practical and cultural: the veil shielded noblewomen from outdoor elements such as insects and dust, but it was also viewed as protecting their “modesty” from the outside world.
If this context also holds true in Avatar, the Painted Lady might have been a local aristocrat who provided aid to Jang Hui Village before passing on. The way she’s briefly presented in the episode is also very similar to Yue (long flowing white dress with anime-style detached sleeves), which leads me to think she was also once a human woman.
Maybe the body paint she wore was meant to mask her identity when she did her charity? A local person of status winning over the common people might have been seen as a direct threat to the Fire Lord’s national hegemony, especially since the village seems to have basically deified her. My pet theory is that the arms factory polluting their village was purposely set up there as punishment for their perceived loyalty towards the Painted Lady’s legacy over the Fire Lord’s cult of personality.
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