Culture Beat: Costume drama sees traditional aesthetics

Promotional material for Scent of Time Photo: Courtesy of Douban

 
A new costume drama is now on Chinese streaming platforms. 

Scent of Time produced by Huanyu TV tells the story of Hua Qian, who once made a mistake because of a momentary obsession with Zhong Yelan, who did not love her, and how she redeems herself with the help of a devoted friend Zhong Xiwu, head of a family that makes incense. 

Hua (Chinese actress Zhou Ye), daughter of the supervisor of the incense maker, once did something wrong because of her infatuation with Zhong Yelan (played by Peng Chuyue), which eventually led to her family's ruin. When fate turned around, Hua wakes up and finds herself back at the night of her wedding with Zhong Yelan. After going through life and death, Hua realizes her mistake and decides to start over. 

The director Bai Yunmo told Global Times that he specially invited Li Shiliang, as a consultant on incense culture. 

"Incense was actually very popular in the Song Dynasty [960-1279] and ancient people actually would burn incense under the bed, in a carriage or indoors," noted Bai.

As a fictional show, the drama draws on the styles of many different dynasties in terms of costumes and set design. 

For example, the show's costume designer said that since making incense has a long history in China. It developed more rapidly in the Tang Dynasty (618-907), which was very cosmopolitan and witnessed the import of many types of foreign medicinal incense. 

Incense then became an indispensable part of people's daily life, especially for the noble class. 

"So we designed different incense products and sachets," said the stylist.

As for the overall picture of the drama, the art director, Yao, said that it would be more in line with the aesthetics of the Song Dynasty.

"We added a lot of contrasting colors to create a dreamy tone," Yao said. 

The character's clothing was also inspired by images in ancient paintings. 

Yao said that most of the female clothing was modeled on a painting called Han Xizai's Night Banquet. 

"We used a lot of silk fabric and light woven silk and real silk spinning this time, because I think the women in the painting look very soft," Yao noted. "Their lines are very elegant, so I hope the clothes they wear can have a kind of feeling of 'flying without wind.' And then the colors are very rich and bright as we used large blocks of color matching."