Miao women embroider hundred-bird coat for upcoming Spring Festival in Guizhou

Women of the Miao ethnic minority group in Guizhou, southwest China embroider Hundred Bird Costume for upcoming Spring Festival. It is made of 7-10 strips of bands with embroidered patterns of frogs, dragons, birds, butterflies and insects, symbols of the Miao’s mystic culture.

The Miao hundred bird coat, originally worn on major occasions to worship ancestors, is now festival attire. A complete dress may contain hundreds of embroidered bird patterns, from whence it receives the name "hundred-bird dress."

The Miao hundred-bird dress, which features bright colors, exotic patterns, skillful technique, different styles and varied cultural connotations, is an embodiment of Miao culture, and is hailed as an "ethnic epic", worn by the Miao people in southwest China's Guizhou.

The hundred-bird dress is the most famous handcraft produced in the ethnic group's embroidery art form which was included in China's first national intangible cultural heritage list in 2006.