The 2014 Paris Fashion Week Miao Embroidery Public Welfare Exhibition attracted many fashion people to watch the exhibition.
Located on the banks of the Bala River, Jidao Village in Kaili, Guizhou is an ancient Miao village with a history of more than 100 years. The traditional Miao family houses in the village are scattered, and the village is full of cooking smoke. Compared with the hustle and bustle of the city, the cozy scene here is like being in another world. In 2011, the China Soong Ching Ling Foundation Women's Happiness Fund - Miao Xiu Village Support Project was officially launched, and the story began with Ji Dao Village.
Miao embroidery is a traditional embroidery technique passed down by the Miao people in China, mainly distributed in the southeastern region of Guizhou. In 2006, Miao embroidery became one of the first traditional skills to be included in the list of China's intangible cultural heritage by the State Council. The ancient Miao people only have language and no writing, and the history and culture of thousands of years have been handed down in the way of Miao embroidery records and ancient songs.
There are many types of Miao embroidery, which are widely distributed, and the embroidery methods used by women in different villages are not the same. Every important festival, people from ten miles and eight townships get together in costumes, do not communicate in language, only need to look at each other's clothing on the Miao people, to know which branch they come from, which village.
However, due to the change of aesthetic concepts and the gradual industrialization of clothing production, people's demand for traditional handicrafts has decreased. More Miao women are working outside the home or busy taking care of the family, fewer and fewer people understand Miao embroidery, and handicraft skills are gradually lost. Ancient embroidery methods such as double-needle wound embroidery, tin embroidery, and broken thread embroidery are at risk of being lost.
Since its establishment 10 years ago, the Miao embroidery village support project has invested a total of more than 9 million yuan to support 17 Miao zhai embroidery girls to carry out training activities, as well as non-genetic inheritance and other related activities such as public welfare exhibitions, and train more than 2,000 embroidery girls.
Miao embroidery works.
Art in the mountains
In March 2011, the China Soong Ching Ling Foundation Women's Happiness Fund - Miao Embroidery Village Support Project (hereinafter referred to as "Miao Embroidery Support Project") was officially launched. Deng Li, one of the initiators of the project, was a director of the Soong Ching Ling Foundation, and she was also the executive editor of the fashion magazine Jia Ren at the time. In her view, the development of the Miaoxiu village support project is a process of gathering sand into a tower.
After receiving the first donation of 400,000 yuan from the French brand Sisley, the project was to find a suitable village to carry out the project.
There are two criteria for the selection of designated villages: low per capita annual income, and the Miao embroidery method, which is on the verge of being lost and needs to be protected. During the visit in the past two months, Jidao Village became the first designated village of the project. In 2011, the average annual income of China's rural population was 7,000 yuan, while in Jidao Village, the per capita annual income was less than 3,000 yuan. Most importantly, the project team discovered one of the most precious embroidery methods in Miao embroidery in Jidao Village - double needle lock thread embroidery.
Chen Qin is the daughter-in-law who married into Jidao Village, a village doctor with a warm personality and can speak the Tao, her husband is a primary school teacher, and the two sons are cultural people in the village.
When she was a child, Chen Qin learned from her mother ordinary Miao embroidery, commonly known as "embroidery". In order to prepare a wedding dress for her daughter, Miaozhai's mother began to prepare when her daughter was ten years old, and the Miao family girls heard about it from an early age and usually learned some simple "embroidery" skills.
In 2011, the Women's Happiness Fund - Miao Embroidery Village Support Project entered the southeast region of Guizhou to empower local embroidery girls.
In the dozen or so villages around the Bala River Valley, the only one who masters double-needle lock thread embroidery is Yang's mother-in-law who lives in Jidao Village. At that time, Yang's mother-in-law was more than 70 years old, could not speak Mandarin, and her eyesight was not as good as before. After her mother's death, when she was sorting out the relics, she found a half-embroidered dress, which her mother had embroidered with double needle lock thread.
In order to complete this dress, Yang Grandma asked for someone to inquire about the embroidery method, while recalling herself, and finally recalled this special embroidery technique. The unintentional restoration of the double-needle lock thread embroidery by Yang Po brought hope to the team. "When we saw her half-new and half-old dress, it was a shock!" Deng Li recalled to The Chinese Philanthropist.
The project team immediately decided to ask Yang Mother-in-law to train young embroiderers and learn double-needle lock thread embroidery. Grandma Yang will believe and doubt. In Miaozhai, if young girls do not continue to study, they go out to work at the age of sixteen or seventeen, and when they reach marriageable age, they will return to the village to marry and have children, and then stay in the family. There are also some Miao women who go out to work with their husbands after marriage, leaving their children to become left-behind children.
Such a situation is not uncommon in Miaozhai. Life in Jidao Village is hard, the villagers are running and working all day in order to make a living, and the time-consuming and laborious Miao embroidery skills are naturally put aside.
In the embroidery competition, Miaozhai embroidery girls show their works.
However, it is not easy to involve Miaozhai women in Miao embroidery training. Han Xiaojun, a project officer for the Miao Embroidery Support Project, recalled to China Philanthropists that for the first time, less than 10 embroidery girls were willing to participate in the Miao embroidery training class held in the village, and most women preferred to watch from the sidelines rather than take the time to participate. A foreign team "suddenly" appeared in the village and held a training class, and most of the villagers did not believe it.
"They don't believe they can get money for participating in projects." Han Xiaojun told Chinese Philanthropists that in the early stages of the project, such a situation will occur in every new village.
The inheritance of young and old is an important part of the project, and it is also necessary to let the traditional skills of Miao embroidery be inherited.
This is the first difficulty encountered by the project after entering the village. The older embroiderers in the village do not speak Chinese, and the young embroiderers are busy with housework and have no trust in the project team. In order to allow more embroidery girls to participate, the project team found a Miao embroidery "leader" in each village, which is an important factor in the smooth progress of the project. This leader needs to know some "embroidery" skills, and more importantly, he knows how to communicate and has prestige in the village.
Chen Qin naturally became the leader of Ji Dao Village. The first batch of designated villages in the project, in addition to Jidao Village, there are also Zhanliu Village, which is good at tin embroidery, and Jinzhong Village, which is good at broken thread embroidery.
The location of the Miao embroidery training class is usually chosen in the village committee or in a spacious courtyard in the village. The lesson lasts for a week, and the embroiderer spends two hours a day learning embroidery. On the last day of the training, the project team distributed embroidery pieces and silk threads to the embroidery girls and asked them to go back to "complete their homework".
Under the influence of their mothers, the girls of the Miao family learned the "embroidery" technique from an early age.
A month later, the team returned to the village again. They asked the Miao embroidery teacher to divide the embroidery girl's homework into three levels, and according to the completion level of the homework, they would give the embroidery girl a reward ranging from 200-600 yuan. Such an incentive mechanism also makes some hesitant embroidery ladies who are watching from the side eager to try. "Through training, they can get income, and some embroidery girls who are not involved are naturally willing to participate in the subsequent training." Han Xiaojun told Chinese Philanthropists.
In fact, most of the people involved in the training are Miaozhai women in their twenties and thirties, most of them do not have a stable income, and the cost of the family is basically supported by the husband working outside the home. These women feed pigs and cattle, and one person carries the burden, but has no family status. After participating in the project and earning income, it is very helpful to improve their status in the family.
As a result, more and more women participated in miao embroidery training, and the news spread outside the village. Some of the women who followed their husbands outside the village also returned to the village, hoping to earn some income by studying Miao embroidery while also caring for their young children at home.
The project official calculated an account for the reporter: a Miaozhai woman's monthly income from working outside the home is about 3,000 yuan, and in addition to renting a house and other living expenses, there is only less than 1,000 yuan left a month. If they return to the village, they can receive orders from enterprises after mastering Miao embroidery, and they can also have an income of 2,000 yuan without leaving home. This is also the ledger in the hearts of many embroidered women.
The embroidery lady Gu Lanhua is the leader of the village Miao embroidery, and she runs an embroidery cooperative.
Utopian practice
In the third year of the project, Miaozhai already has a group of mature embroidery girls. The project team proposed that Miao embroidery be used as the main element to make a handbag and conduct a public auction to recycle the money obtained on the project, and also expand the influence of Miao embroidery.
However, although the idea is good, it is difficult to implement, and the first thing to encounter is the problem of funds. Miao embroidery support projects are usually funded by donations from major brands for daily miao embroidery training and other activities. If you want to make an additional product, you need to raise additional funds.
Deng Li found friends around him, hoping to cooperate to complete this work, and then sold it through the e-commerce platform. After three months of hard work, a Shanghai lingerie brand agreed to donate 500,000 yuan for handbag production and promotion, while filming a short documentary.
Costume designers also join in at this time, participating in the design of the handbag and the final product check. After entering the Miaozhai investigation in the field, the designer decided to use the tin embroidery of Zhanliu Village as an element of the handbag.
Li Min studied Miao embroidery for many years and has now grown into a village leader.
Project officials told reporters that tin embroidery has high requirements for the selection of leather, not any material can be made of tin embroidery, the final presentation of the product must not only meet the designer's creativity, but also to meet the requirements of different embroidery methods for cloth. This is also the reason why Miao embroidery cannot be promoted in a large area.
At a limited cost, the team decided to make 500 handbags priced at $688. In the end, the charity sale received 250,000 yuan of donations, and at the same time brought more than 40,000 yuan of income to more than 20 embroidery girls.
The production and sale of public welfare products saves most of the design and publicity costs, and in these links, the team members are almost all "volunteer labor". And if these costs are added, the price of handbags is by no means more than 688 yuan. This is another reason why products cannot be widely promoted.
In 2014, the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and France, the project team came up with the idea of bringing Miao embroidery to Paris Fashion Week. Therefore, just after the Spring Festival holiday in 2014, the planning of the Miao Embroidery Public Welfare Exhibition began.
The holding of the Miao embroidery public welfare exhibition allows more foreigners to understand Miao embroidery.
However, due to the delay in reaching a consensus with the original curator's ideas, the project team took many detours. After the final plan was finalized, the exhibition site in Paris was again hampered by budgetary problems.
In the end, the team went to find the exhibition location, coincidentally, the new exhibition location Xinhua Film Gallery is located opposite the French Presidential Palace, only one block away from the French Hermès brand main store, which is the most prosperous area in Paris.
On September 30, 2014, the Paris Miao Embroidery Public Welfare Exhibition officially began. The opening ceremony was scheduled to end at 10 p.m., as the number of celebrities and brands visiting was so great that it was delayed until after 12 p.m.
Since then, the charity exhibition has lasted for 10 days. It was also after this exhibition that more international fashion brands chose to cooperate with the Miao embroidery support project, so that the project was on the right track. In 2016, the Miao Embroidery Support Project held a miao embroidery public welfare exhibition at New York Fashion Week.
During Paris Fashion Week and New York Fashion Week, Miao embroidery costumes are exhibited in the Miao embroidery public welfare exhibition.
Connect with the market
A mature embroiderer usually needs to go through two years of professional training. Next, the first consideration of the project team is how to make the Miao embroidery technique go out of the mountains and let the embroidery lady get greater benefits from it. Therefore, the project team consulted with the local government, contacted the local enterprises that made Miao embroidery products to place some orders, and changed some products to hand embroidery.
Liu Rui, director of the Cultural Industry Office of Kaili City, has participated in the Miao embroidery support project since 2014, according to him, some skilled embroidery girls can earn 4,000 yuan a month after receiving orders, and the lowest ones have 1,000 yuan.
Liu Rui took the lead in contacting Chen Qin of Ji Dao Village. As early as 2010, Chen Qin carried out folklore projects in the village, organized villagers' song and dance performances, made Miao embroidery displays, and quickly accepted foreign things. Chen Qin is very actively involved, hoping to contact more orders and let the embroidery girls in the village increase their income.
Since 2011, actor Xu Qing has actively participated in the Miaoxiu Village Support Project.
However, the process of realizing revenue is not an easy task. Despite the unique charm of hand embroidery, it is difficult to unify the standards. The embroidery girl's usual works are more arbitrary, and it is difficult to unify the color, style, and stitchwork. Orders from enterprises are different, not only requiring the color matching and pattern to be consistent, but also more stringent requirements for the exquisiteness of the stitches.
Chen Qin told "Chinese Philanthropists" that most embroidery girls could not adapt to these unified standards at the beginning, let alone the concept of contract, and when the time specified in the order arrived, some embroidery girls could not complete a single embroidery piece.
At the same time, some embroidery girls are not satisfied with the unit price of a single embroidery piece, but they do not put forward ideas, neither silently nor complete the order. When the enterprise came to receive the goods, it was found that the embroidery lady could not hand over anything.
In order to meet the high requirements of the enterprise, it is not only necessary to unify the quality of the embroidery thread, but also to unify the pattern of the suit, and many completed embroidery pieces also need to be reworked and redone. During that time, Chen Qin had to persuade the embroidery girls one by one, let them understand the importance of the contract, and tell them the benefits of completing the order.
The project team knows that only by allowing the embroidery lady to have the ability to train and manage orders independently can the Miao embroidery support project continue sustainably. In 2016, the China Soong Ching Ling Foundation began to cooperate with the United Nations Development Programme, which invested 3 million yuan in three years, part of which is still used for Miao embroidery skills training, and the other part is targeted to carry out the capacity building and internal organization and management of embroidery girls.
In Miaozhai, the embroidery skills of the old embroiderers have become valuable spiritual wealth.
The project team proposed that on the basis of the original group of embroiderers, each village should establish an embroidery cooperative. Since there were originally Miao embroidery leaders in each village, they also organized the establishment of cooperatives. The foundation is responsible for convincing brands that they can have 1-2 brands of large orders a year, and the rest are orders from local companies. In the accumulation of orders, the embroidery ladies gradually learn to evaluate the difficulty, time and cost of orders, and finally discuss a suitable workflow.
In recent years, the China Soong Ching Ling Foundation Women's Happiness Fund has successively carried out e-commerce training, so that embroidery girls can adapt to the new Internet sales model.
In October 2018, Hermès officially cooperated with the China Soong Ching Ling Foundation to train miao embroidery skills and more ability training in line with market trends for three villages. Project official Han Xiaojun brought e-commerce training teachers and Hermès sales team to Miaozhai again to teach embroidery girls how to open an online store on the Internet platform and how to shoot Miao embroidery works for more people to pay attention to.
Han Xiaojun told "Chinese Philanthropists" that an active leader like Chen Qin not only organized the embroidery festival in the village and looked for orders, but also had a stable income by opening an online store. What impressed Han Xiaojun the most was Li Min of Cat Cat River Village, who also became the leader of the village, and was no longer the Miaozhai woman who blushed and had an introverted personality as soon as she spoke.
The project team believes that capacity building is the key to the embroidery girls to achieve their autonomous cycle, which is the so-called "teaching people to fish is not as good as teaching people to fish".
Chinese Philanthropists 2021 Annual Public Welfare Project
Women's Happiness Fund - Miao Xiu Village Support Project
It was initiated by the China Soong Ching Ling Foundation in 2011. By actively excavating traditional cultural resources, taking poverty alleviation as the core, taking traditional craft training as the starting point, taking market development as the goal, and taking cooperatives as the foothold, the project has enlarged the traditional industries of Miao embroidery, helped Miao women improve their living conditions, increased the way to get rich, and improved their social status, so as to achieve the goal of accurate poverty alleviation and effective poverty alleviation; at the same time, better inherit, protect and carry forward the traditional handicrafts of ethnic minorities, and save the intangible cultural heritage that is on the verge of being lost.
Reasons for selection
The protection and inheritance of intangible cultural heritage has never been just a slogan. The Miao embroidery village support project has gone into the deep mountains again and again, not only guarding the ancient Miao embroidery technique, but also bringing the concept of modernization, so that the women in the village can create value through their own hands and live a happy life with dignity.
Image source: Courtesy of the interviewee
Photo editor: Zhang Xu
Duty Editor: Wan Xiaojun