August 2008 Archives

The Palace Museum in Beijing currently has an exhibition running entitled "The Splendors of Imperial Costume". The title is a fair description of a show which is unique as far as I know.

Imperial costumes display some of the finest of Chinese decorative designs and workmanship, yet costume has received relatively little attention in China until the last decade. This exhibition is playing its part in the elevation of costume to the same level as other Imperial arts.

The exhibition focusses on the Qing dynasty (roughly, the mid 17th century onwards), the period in which the Chinese court was dominated by a dynasty of Manchurian origin. Traditional Manchurian costume, adapted to horseriding and archery, was quite different to the Han Chinese styles previously in use at the court. Yet the Manchurians quickly adapted their native styles (such as the horseshoe shaped cuff in the robe in the picture, which belonged to the Shunzhi Emperor) and made use of traditional Chinese skills in embroidery, silk tapestry and brocade weaving to produce spectacular versions of their traditional dress.

Despite its large holdings of treasures, the Palace Museum at the Forbidden City does not maintain large permanent exhibitions of its treasures, and this is the first major showing of costume. Around a hundred robes of superlative quality are on display and this show is therefore a must-see for those interested in costume and Chinese decorative art.

The show is being held in the first gateway at the south entrance of the Forbidden City (turn left and left again just after the ticket gate). Until November 8th, 2008.

Torana Squares are novel carpet designs that we have created exclusively for the NEST design collective in Shanghai. Details and a full list of designs are on our website

We've departed from the normal rectangular format, as well as from the colors and patterns you'd expect to see on a carpet.

These rugs are still made at our workshop in Lhasa, from pure Tibetan wool and with the same care and attention that we put into all our carpets. The brilliant shades have all been achieved with non toxic, azo free dyes which are fully absorbed onto the wool and hence safe for the environment (as well as for our customers!).

They are available in sizes ranging from 3ftx3ft, 4ftx4ft, 5ftx5ft and upwards.
For our Shanghai customers, Torana Squares are on sale exclusively at the NEST design collective on Tai Kang Lu (see previous-but-one post in this blog for details). We hope to make them available to our Beijing customers soon, and they can also be ordered in the meantime.

Pamela Cross's website www.tribaltextiles.info is the best resource on-line that I have come across for textiles from SE Asia and SW China.

This region of Asia is a patchwork of ethnic groups, each with their own distinct and varied traditions of textile making and clothing design. A good number of books have been published on textiles from this region, but the difficulty lies in the sheer diversity of this area, and the fact that textiles from previously unknown groups are being discovered regularly.

This is where Pamela's website comes in. The site includes a forum where items can be posted and reviewed by site members, many of whom have years of collecting experience and some of whom have traveled extensively in the region. The results are an example of how the web can bring together expertise to good effect.

Speaking personally, I've been an occasional contributor to the site, which enabled me for example to identify the textile shown in this post as an example of batik work from the Rao Jia group in Guizhou province.

Pamela deserves congratulations for her work, and I'd encourage anyone with an interest in textiles from this region to take a look.

Don't be put off by the title, NEST is a SHOP where you can BUY THINGS, in Shanghai's Tai Kang Lu.

Shanghai residents will know this area already. For those of you coming from further away, ie Beijing, (and it is rumored that there are places even further away than Beijing), Tai Kang Lu is an old district of narrow streets that has been taken over by cafe owners, designers, photographers, ceramicists, jugglers, sorbet-makers and other global flotsam.

Nest was started by designer Trine Targett (Jooi), who invited fellow designers to make unique products especially for the NEST space. The NEST line-up now includes Rachel Speth and Jeff Delkin (Bambu), whose remarkable lacquered bamboo artistry is pictured at left or whereever the damned image appears, does Movable Type suck or what? , clothing by Lisa Wen (Brown Rice), Jammy Yang's novel lighting designs (Y Town), Grace Liu's delicate ceramics (AsianEra), paper art from Paper Tiger, Sherry Poon's organic cotton babywear (Wobaby), Sacha Silva's remarkable furniture (A00) as well as founder Trine's textile works ... and carpets from Torana.

These people are all my friends, so expect lots of shameless plugs thoughtful, objective coverage of this venture over the coming weeks.

There is more information on NEST, a map and so on on their website.

Amidst all the hoo-ha about Chinese contemporary art in Beijing at the moment (with several major exhibitions timed to co-incide with the Olympics), a rare chance to see some of China's oldest surviving paintings.

The Forbidden City is displaying some of its holdings of paintings, including two very early works: a painting of a Tang emperor receiving a Tibetan envoy, and a stunning and panoramic work called the "Night Revels of Han Xi Zai". The story behind this painting (probably apocryphal) is that the painter Gu Hong Zhong was commissioned by the emperor to spy on the official Han Xi Zai, who was reputed to be leading a debauched lifestyle in the provinces, away from the watchful eye of the court. The painting is supposed to be the result of the commission.

There is some debate about the exact age of this painting, but it was certainly in the collection of the Song emperor Huizhong (r. 1101-26). It is a superb diorama of the costumes, furniture, porcelain and entertainments of the early Song period.

This painting is on display in an exhibition with other works until the end of August in the Forbidden City: turn left in the main courtyard inside the main (southern) ticket gate to get to the Wu Ying Dian (Hall of Martial Valor). There are plans for a repeat showing in September.

For those that can't get to the Forbidden City, there is a good image of the whole painting at this link.

Continuing an occasional theme of outstanding design from unexpected sources

This is a basket made by a member of the Dong minority, from Guizhou province in the South West of China. It's for holding fish caught from the rivers, and is also a fine example of elegant form following practical function.

The basket is worn at the waist, so its maker has given it a flattened profile so that it does not interfere with the wearer's movement.

The curious "twist" to the design is purely for aesthetic reasons: the basket's maker has chosen to cover up half of the supporting struts and just to reveal those traveling from top left to lower right.

Dong baskets have a complex double-walled structure. Inside the basket there is an openwork "frame" of criss-crossing diagonal struts. The outer wall (ie what you can see in the photo) is built around this framework. This makes a very strong container.

Despite being a utilitarian object, I think this stands comparison with sculptural baskets, made as objects of beauty and for ikebana, by modern Japanese artists.

This might be the most frequently worn clothing design in human history.

The side-buttoning style is the archetypal form for most Chinese jackets, only falling out of favor in the early 20th century, when the center-buttoning style became more popular. I find this more appealing for its asymmetry. You can still see this style occasionally in Japanese workmen's jackets, but it is now uncommon in China.

It's also difficult to find old examples. Millions (billions?) were made, but they wore out and few people bothered to keep them. This example comes from Guizhou province in SW China, and I think it probably dates to the 1920s. The cloth is dyed with natural indigo.

Time for a revival?

A couple of weeks back I was in Lhasa visiting our workshop. Buying jewelry from nomad visitors who are in town on pilgrimmage is an (entertaining) bonus.

Nomad tastes are eclectic, so their strings of beads combine "stones" which may only be a few decades old (including lots of newish dzi beads from Taiwan and Guangdong) with beads that may be centuries old. The oldest beads I have ever seen in nomad necklaces are agates in distinctive shapes from Inner Mongolia, which date back to the Liao dynasty (around 900 years old). If only they could be induced to speak...

There are necklaces in our Kempinski store made from old beads refashioned into contemporary settings.