The Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics is approaching, and with many details exposed, the cultural content is full, and the Chinese romance touches people's hearts. Not only will the award ceremony "wear" the "Map of a Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" on the body, but the award bouquets of the Beijing Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games will also change the traditional cut flowers and adopt a beam of velvet thread crocheted with the intangible cultural heritage - Haipai velvet weaving technique.
It is reported that the Haipai velvet thread weaving technique used this time has a history of more than 100 years, and the velvet floriculture is one of its representatives. There are a total of 1251 bouquets of flowers in this year's awards, and there are seven types of flowers in each bouquet, including: roses symbolizing friendship, symbolizing the tenacious moon season, suzu orchids symbolizing happiness, hydrangeas symbolizing unity, laurel symbolizing victory, osmanthus flowers symbolizing harvest, and olives symbolizing peace, all handmade. Among them, a blue cosmos was added to the bouquet of the Winter Paralympic Awards, symbolizing strength. The flowers are shaped and bundled into a bouquet of flowers with a height of 34 cm and a chest diameter of 24 cm, and the word "BEIJING2022" is printed on the bow ribbon on the bouquet handle.
A ball of velvet thread, two bamboo needles, sitting idly under the window of the living room, the sunlight through the embroidered white window screen, shining on the woman's shoulders, indescribably comfortable and quiet. Formed in Shanghai in the late Qing Dynasty, the art of Haipai velvet thread weaving is a kind of clothing knotting art that integrates Western crochet knitting and uses the mechanism wool velvet thread in the traditional Chinese folk knot art. In the middle of the nineteenth century, the west wind gradually moved to the east, and Shencheng felt the world trend at the beginning of the opening of the port, which gave birth to the urban cultural personality of the city that was easy to get the wind early and the first to open the wind. In the "easy clothes" movement that occurred as a result of political changes, new clothing fashions appeared. A group of intellectual women from middle- and upper-class families who were deeply influenced by the classical female red art and underwent the baptism of the times tried to use the mechanism of British merchants and foreign companies to wool and wool thread, and used stick needles and crochet tools to carry out clothing knitting activities. In 2009, the "Haipai Velvet Thread Weaving Technique" was included in the list of representative items of Shanghai Intangible Cultural Heritage by the municipal government.
After receiving the task in June last year, Li Meimei and the project team began the design of the flower type, the selection of flower materials and other preparatory work, after countless times of revision and review, until the beginning of October last year, the final draft was finalized, and it was recognized by the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee. "More than ten thousand flowers, each of which has to pass through my hand, and all I can guarantee now is that every bouquet of flowers is flawless. The shape sent to the athletes is exactly the same as it is now. ”
It is reported that in order to complete this glorious and arduous task, Hengyuanxiang Group, with the support of the All-China Women's Federation and other organizations, mobilized the knotting societies in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and other provinces and cities to participate in the award bouquet project. Li Meimei is mainly responsible for the design, training, quality control and final assembly of the award bouquet.
The sum of the flower materials vary in length and the Winter Olympic bouquet has a very strict size standard, in order to improve comfort and ornamentality, Li Mei first used pliers to prune the flowers, but it was very time-consuming and labor-intensive, and later applied to the company for a cutting machine, which greatly improved the work efficiency. "I didn't waste the cut branches, originally our whole bouquet was actually thin to hold, so I filled in the pruned branches, so that the athletes could hold the bouquet better and greatly save material."
Li Meimei is 70 years old, and this is her twentieth year involved in the yarn knitting industry. After retiring from the magazine, he began to devote himself to velvet knitting. Now that she is still doing the work of promoting and disseminating the art of haipai velvet thread weaving, she hopes that the younger generation will pay more attention to non-genetic inheritance. "At the same time, just like we hook flowers, I hope that the younger generation can focus and persevere in the process of growing up to do one thing and strive to achieve their dreams."
Yangtze Evening News/Purple Cow News reporter Zhang Nan