Recently in textiles Category

Exceedingly friendly, in a tongue-hanging out kind of way, this is the new snow lion from the Dropenling Handicrafts Center in Lhasa, run by the Tibet Artisan Initiative.

He was created by Susie Vickery, a former RSC costume designer, who visited Lhasa last year to work with traditional Tibetan tailors and applique workers to create the snow lion and other Tibetan dolls. The artisans are using traditional applique skills that are used for making religious banners and door hangings, but applied in a new way.

The snow lion is a traditional animal in Tibet, the seat of Vaishravana (Namtose), the god of wealth and the King of the Northern Direction, often seen in paintings in both secular and religious contexts, as well as in sculptures around Lhasa.

The snow lion has been such a hit that Susie is back in Lhasa right now, designing new animals for next year. The Dropenling team will be visiting Beijing later this month and attending some of the pre-Christmas bazaars and bringing some snow lions with them. I will be posting a list of the bazaars we will be attending later this month.

The Tibet Artisan Initiative's website is at www.tibetcraft.com

For those that can't wait, I have a few of these guys in my Torana store in the Kempinski hotel in Beijing.

On Thursday this week I will be giving a talk for the Beijing International Society. The BIS is open to foreign passport holders in Beijing: talks are free for members, but non-members may also attend (one-time fee: 50RMB, please bring your passport since the talk is inside an embassy compound) There are more details about the BIS on their website:
www.beijinginternationalsociety.com

Here is the talk outline from the BIS flyer:

Tibetan Textiles: Reviving Traditional Skills
Illustrated Lecture
By Mr. Chris Buckley
7.30pm, Thursday, 6 November
Embassy of Kuwait
科威特国大使馆
光华路23号

Keweite Dashiguan
23 Guanghua Lu


Throughout its history, Tibet has been largely pastoral, with its herds of yaks, sheep and other animals providing the material for producing a variety of textile products, including blankets, tents, clothing and, of course, carpets.  However, in recent years many of the traditional skills have been lost.

Chris Buckley, working together with the Tibet Artisan Initiative in Lhasa, has spent the past three years working to recover some of the traditional Tibetan natural dyeing methods.  He will talk about Tibet's rich history of textile manufacture (whether in small-scale cottage industries or larger, commercial enterprises), as well as textile uses.  He will also discuss the sometimes unexpected environmental and social issues relating to dye choice and textile manufacture in Lhasa and area.  

Chris Buckley has lived in China since 1995.  He made his first trip to Tibet in 1996, from which time his interest in Tibetan art and culture developed.  He received a PhD in chemistry from Oxford, training which has proved beneficial to his latest researches into traditional dyeing technologies.

Membership desk opens 7.00pm for 7.30 pm lecture

We've just received a new shipment of Tibetan cashmere shawls at our Torana Beijing store, so I'm going to take the opportunity here to describe what Cashmere is ... and also what it isn't.

Cashmere is a very fine, soft material that is neither wool nor hair. It comes from the Pashmina goats (hence it's alternative name) that live at high altitudes. In the case of our cashmere, that means Tibet.

The altitude is important, because the purpose of the downy cashmere is to keep the goat warm in winter. Many animals living at high elevations grow cashmere coats under their outer fur or hair, even yaks (the yak version of cashmere is called kulu), but the type from the pashmina goat is the whitest and softest available. Pashmina goats live very happily at lower altitudes, but they don't produce good cashmere if the weather is too warm.

The material got its name "Cashmere" because it became popular in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries and the country doing most of the weaving of Tibetan cashmere in those days was Kashmir. In those days most shawls were woven with traditional paisley designs from the Kashmiri weaver's traditional repertoire. Today shawl designs are a great deal more varied and they are made in several locations around the Himalayas.

These days a great many shawls and scarves are on sale in China and elsewhere that are called "Cashmere" or "Pashmina". The problem for the buyer is that these include a range of materials from Tibetan cashmere (best, because of the altitude) through Mongolian cashmere (lesser quality) to New Zealand wool (artificially fluffed to make it seem like cashmere). Until you are familiar with the real thing these materials can be difficult to tell apart. Most of the inexpensive "Cashmere" that I have seen on sale in Beijing is not cashmere at all. This includes the countless shawls in shades of chemical pink and blue that are sold in the markets here.

Cashmere can also be bought in pure form, or in blends with silk. The pure form is more expensive, not only because of the cashmere content, but because it is slower and more difficult to weave than thread blended with silk. In Torana we have both pure cashmere shawls and 70%cashmere/30% silk shawls, the pure shawls being about twice the price of the blends. Both are attractive and woven and designed to the same standard so this is a matter of choice and budget.

Aside from considerations of fiber content, weave quality is also critical with cashmere. A very light touch is needed to bring out the best in the fiber, and good cashmere should have a "floaty" feel as well as being soft.

Finally, as with any luxury item, design is just as important as materials. Good quality cashmere is usually synonymous with good color and design, since it is worthwhile to employ a good designer to make the most of the best material.

There are some pictures of (some of) our new designs on this page of our website.

At our Torana An Fu Lu store in Shanghai we have a show ongoing of Chinese silk textile fragments. These range from small pieces like the red silk brocade fragment shown here at far left, up to a complete silk tapestry robe panel from around 1800.

Most of these pieces I've collected in Tibet over the last decade during my regular trips to our workshop in Lhasa. The association between Tibet and Chinese silk textiles might not seem an obvious one at first sight, but in fact it's one of the best places to find old silk, particularly earlier pieces from the Ming dynasty (1353-1644) that interest me most. Chinese silk was used in Tibetan ceremonial robes, altar cloths and other items, and the state of preservation in Tibetan temples is usually better than that found in other parts of China.

As a rug designer, I'm particularly interested in the Ming fragments since they show some of the best characteristics of Ming design: bold designs, a fondness for flowing curves and generous shapes, a nice balance of "figure" and "ground" and a certain freedom and experimentation that is often lacking in designs from later periods.

Cloud designs from this period are a particular favorite of mine, and something I've used in carpet designs for Torana. As an example, I've included a fragment of a red silk cloud brocade that originally formed part of a Tibetan lama's robe, with a Torana rug design (below) that is based on similar cloud shapes. The colors in the carpet design are not characteristically Chinese though, the blue tones on a red ground were inspired by Indonesian batiks (another story entirely).

Textile designs from the Ming period remained fashionable in the early part of the Qing dynasty (17th century), but were replaced at the Chinese court in Beijing by new decorative styles from the 18th century onwards.

The An Fu Lu store show will run during September and October 2008. A map and contact details for our store are at this link.

"Metersbonwe" is not a name that trips off the tongue for most non-Chinese, but you will know it as a famous clothing brand if you are 20-something and from the PRC. The owner of this Chinese clothing chain, Zhou ChengJian, has recently created what has become China's foremost costume museum, encompassing court robes, Qipao from the 1920s and (above all) the costumes of China's ethnic minority groups.

This is a field that until recently was of interest mainly to foreigners and overseas Chinese. Mr Zhou's revelation came during a visit to the United Kingdom in 2003, when he found that many of the relics exhibited in country houses and museums "were from China, and among them were rare ancient Chinese costumes and ornaments" ... thus inspiring "a sense of duty to protect Chinese costumes of all ethnic groups". He set about building a collection that is now displayed at the Metersbonwe flagship store in Shanghai. I saw the collection a couple of days ago, and it is superb. It's strength lies in some fine and early examples of ethnic costume, particularly in the complete outfits collected by Mr Zhou. the exhibit is also well set out with explanations in both English and Chinese.




Metersbonwe Costume Museum, 387 Nanjing Dong Lu, Shanghai (the museum is housed on the top floor of the 5 storey shop in the pedestrianised part of Nanjing Road)
Open 7 days a week, 10am-8pm
admission free
www.mbmuseum.org

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.

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.

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?