Students get a glimpse of fashion magic

If you give a piece of cloth to a Masai person in Kenya, it will swiftly turn into a shuka, the local word for shawl, as it is wrapped around the body.

In the eyes of a fashion designer, however, the possible uses for that same piece of cloth are almost endless.

Professor Luo Jingjie demonstrated the art of making fashionable clothes at the Confucius Institute at Moi University after giving a lecture, Shanghai Fashion Past and Present.

The lecture aimed to explain Shanghai and its fashion industry to Kenyan students studying Chinese.

Luo was one of two professors invited by the institute. The other was Professor Ni Ming, a textile art designer who spoke about the influence of digital printing on fabric pattern design. Both professors are from Donghua University in Shanghai, China, which specializes in textiles.

Luo is a well-known prize-winning fashion designer.

He demonstrated his talent by doing some "three-dimensional tailoring".

He took out a piece of cloth, folded it and cut from the upper edge to make a collar. The second and third cuts were for the sleeves.

"If you cut the collar in the middle of the upper edge, it will be in a shape used in normal clothing," said Luo. "But if you cut the collar by one side of the upper edge, then the effect of the bottom opening will be uneven and thus fashionable."

The surprised students witnessed a simple way of creating fashion in seconds.

Zhao Xiaolin, director of the Confucius Institute, said the professors were invited to mark Confucius Institute Day, which falls at the end of September.

The Confucius Institute at Moi, Kenya's only university specializing in textiles, celebrated the day with two sessions.

In the morning, the professors gave their lectures. In the afternoon, student representatives and the professors went to visit underprivileged youngsters at the Children's Welfare House at Matunda.

It was the second time teachers and students had visited the welfare house in two months. Seeing the teachers again, the children were excited and eager to greet them with "Nihao! (How are you?)" and "Wo Ai Ni (I love you)", the only Chinese they still remembered.

Teachers and students taught the children some simple Chinese and presented Chinese face masks and the silk scarves as prizes.

(China Daily Africa Weekly 12/02/2016 page21)