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A new home folk costumes
(China Daily)
Updated: 2004-05-03 10:51 A museum, dedicated to the
professional study of Chinese costume history, is to open to the public in
Shanghai this November.
Preparations for the opening of the Chinese Attire and Costume Museum involve
professors and students of Donghua University in the city, which specializes in
textile and costume studies.
Bao Mingxin, an expert in Chinese costume history at the university, is the
leader of the preparatory team.
Currently, it has collected over 600 exhibits from three sources. More than
400 of them are from university collections that were used as illustrations in
lectures, and more than 100 costumes have been donated by enthusiastic
citizens,says Cao Huang, Bao's assistant.
The famous Ningbo-based, garment-making group Youngor donated the remainder -
77 items valued at more than 1.4 million yuan (US$168,674) - which includes the
most expensive article - a dragon robe made during the reign of Emperor Guangxu
(1871-1908) in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).
After thorough study, experts determined that the dragon robe is a superb
piece of work of that time and it was made using the then very advanced weaving
technique, kesi.
Kesi is a type of Chinese silk tapestry. The warp is stretched horizontally
on the loom during weaving and weft is brocaded in tabby with small shuttles.
The weft is not interlocked between differently coloured areas and small slits
appear in the pattern contours. Kesi may be woven so that the fabric is
reversible. When a kesi is suspended the warp should be vertical, according to
textile terminology.
Bao pointed out that more complicated patterns on the fabric could be done
with kesi techniques.
The dragon robe has eight symbolic patterns on it such as the sun, the moon,
the sea, representing the power of the emperor and nine dragon patterns.
"These patterns could only be used by emperors, and it were made by the-then
Jiangning weaving bureau which was located in the current Nanjing, one of the
top three weaving bureaux at that time in China," Bao said. The other two were
in Suzhou and Hangzhou.
The experts explained that not only emperors but also senior officials could
possess dragon robes. The emperors would present dragon robes to senior
officials of great achievement and family members as demonstrations of their
largesse.
"There is a major difference between the emperor's dragon robe and the
collections of the others," Bao said.
The dragon on the emperors' robes has five claws, but the dragons used others
could only have four. The stitches of one claw were taken out to show people's
respect to the emperor.
Li Meng, another assistant of Bao, said that both Youngor group and Donghua
University each donated three dragon robes.
"These dragon robes are not the most expensive ones in China," said Bao.
However, they have great value for professionals studying Chinese costume
history.
Youngor's donation also contains early garment-making machines from the
United States, Germany and Japan and irons made in Japan and China in the early
20th century.
Cao Huang said: "Enthusiastic citizens also contributed a lot to the founding
of the museum. Many of their donations are of top quality."
Li Meng said the first donation from a Shanghai citizen was a Chinese-style
wedding gown donated by Zhang Jueyou, now in his 70s.
The carmine wedding gown was not for Zhang's wedding, but his mother's. It
was made in the 1910s.
Zhang has preserved the gown very well and it still looks new. Lotus and
lotus root patterns, which are auspicious signs for a happy marriage, were
embroidered on it. The trimming and buttons curled in the shape of flowers are
exquisite.
Bao said, "The garment-making techniques in the first half of the 20th
century are very worth studying. They combine hand work and machine work, which
is rarely seen nowadays."
Bao said that the museum would mainly collect articles made in the period
from the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) to the current time and archives from before
the Qing Dynasty.
"Real articles made prior to the Qing Dynasty are extremely expensive and our
aim in building the museum is just to show viewers the development of Chinese
costumes. I believe multimedia displays of archive materials will help us
realize our aim," he said.
Bao said that the museum has obtained financial support from the Ministry of
Education which has allocated over 2 million yuan (US$240,963) to the
preparatory team.
However, projected costs for setting up the museum exceed 10 million yuan
(US$1.2 million).
"Therefore,donations from both companies and citizens are crucial for the
museum," Bao said.
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