I believe this is a woman's silk coat dating to the first quarter-or-so of the 20th Century. I think it's post Qing dynasty, which ended in 1911, as it doesn't follow what were pretty strict rules of ornamentation, color and etc. before that. The side vents indicate a woman's coat, and the white color, which was associated with Daoist priest's robes, would be even more unusual if the coat were 1911 or earlier. The embroidery features many auspicious/good luck symbols along with creatures from Chinese mythology including qilin (the one horned creatures), different birds, each of which represents a good character trait or something similar, peonies, water plants, fruit blossoms and branches, flames which are associated with the qilin, butterflies and many other flowers, animals and auspicious symbols. The narrowest bands appear to be woven, but I can't make out the pattern. Virtually every single decorative device had meaning or represented something to the Chinese, even the different flowers. The embroidery is satin stitch, padded satin stitch and long-and-short satin stitch, and I suspected there would be little knots of seed stitch (forbidden stitch) somewhere, but I can't see any. Although the various embroideries are highly symbolic individually, in this case they don't seem to tell a story of place and position in aggregate and appear more strictly decorative in nature, another reason for my estimating its age to be post 1911. There are references available if you're interested in knowing the exact symbology of the many elements. I hope this helps. It's a broad and complicated field within which one could spend a lifetime of study.
