Chen Suyue (right) at the festival. [Photo provided to China Daily]

One aspect of passing on that message is making the most of the technology at her disposal, and Wang says she often takes photographs when dressing in hanfu and posts them on Sina Weibo, China's answer to Twitter. She has nearly 70,000 followers there.

A pioneer in promoting hanfu on the internet was the website hanfuhui.cn, which Liu Yinhong, 27, set up four years ago and is said to now have more than 200,000 registered users.

Liu, of Shenzhen, was well placed to make the marriage between hanfu and new technology work, having earlier been a programmer for a software developing and having coded Web pages in his spare time.

"At that time, Tieba was the largest online community for those who love hanfu, and there was no website for it. I wanted to design a platform on which tongpao (a nickname for hanfu lovers) could share pictures, organize online activities and post articles, all about hanfu."

The site soon branched out into an online discussion board and shopping guide for all things hanfu. About 80 percent of the users are aged 18 to 28, Liu says.