The changes in Yi people′s dress aesthetics in Yunnan since modern times goes from simplicity to luxuriance and then to inclusiveness, during which a lot of characteristics have been exposed: the aesthetic orientation evolves from " tribal inward convergence" to " collective outward convergence" ; the garment designs feature both " complexity" and " practicability" ; the production methods develop from " manual" to " industrial" ; and the aesthetic standards grow from " singularity" to " diversity" . A research into the changes show that the external causes should be the drastic social chan- ges, the enrichment of the raw material for clothes, the coexistence of diversified cultures, and the replacement of manual production by mass production in the garment industry; and the internal causes are the changes in Yunnan Yi people′s liv- ing standards, their garment inheritance patterns, their elites′ creativity, and the impacts of the tendency toward easiness. Keywords:Yi people; dress aesthetics; changes; characteristic; motivation; modern times