Abstract: “Line”, as one of the three elements of formal beauty, is the most expressive design element in visual art, and it also reveals brilliant creativity in the form of clothing. Based on the principles of formal beauty in traditional aesthetic theories, modern molding art and decorative art, by adopting literature research and real object investigation methods and by observing, sorting out and analyzing the decorative arts in the Folk Costume Museum of Jiangnan University, the paper summed up and discussed the application of “line”art in museum and divided the “line” in folk costumes into two categories, i.e. molding line and decorative line, and then expounded on the traditional aesthetic art of Han folk clothing from the perspective of formal art.

Key words: decorative art; line decoration; formal beauty; Han folk clothing