Yi people has thirteen sub-groups, most of which live in mountainous areas where it's windy and cold. Their favorite color for the costumes is black, but, Yi people have found the way to both make their clothes look colorful by meticulously blending the other colors with black and keep them warm.

Yi costume is great in variety, with different designs in different places. In the Liangshan Mountains and west Guizhou, men wear black jackets with tight sleeves and right-side askew fronts, and pleated wide-bottomed trousers.     

Women wear laced or embroidered jackets and pleated long skirts hemmed with colorful multi-layer laces. In some other places, women wear black turbans, while middle-aged and young women prefer embroidered square kerchiefs with the front covering the forehead like a rim. They also wear earrings and like to pin silver flowers on the collar.