Zhang Fenglan is the fifth generation inheritor of the traditional beijing-style qipao making skills, in order to express her good wishes for the Beijing Winter Olympics, she used snowflakes as inspiration to develop a cultural and creative derivative with the qipao disc buckle as the core. The snowflake disc buckle decorative painting created by her was sent to the main media center of the Winter Olympic Games for display, and the snowflake disc buckle pendant she designed was also given as a small gift to the staff of the Winter Olympic venue. The small disc buckle perfectly combines China's splendid intangible cultural heritage culture and the ice and snow culture of the Winter Olympic Games.
Walking into Zhang Fenglan's studio located in the Wulituo Folk Customs Exhibition Hall in Shijingshan District, I saw that there were beautiful "snowflakes" hanging on the wall, placed on the table, and clipped in books. There are framed snowflake decorative paintings, beautiful snowflake brooches, snowflake earrings, snowflake pendants, as well as elegant snowflake bookmarks, snowflake calendars... Even the coasters for drinking tea are embroidered with delicate snowflake patterns.
The Snowflake series was inspired by a snowstorm in early 2018. At that time, Zhang Fenglan, who was standing outside the Folklore Exhibition Hall, was pleased to see that the large snowflakes fell like rubbing cotton, holding one in the palm of his hand, the snowflakes appeared crystal clear and perfect hexagonal, but in the blink of an eye, they melted in the palm of the hand, leaving only a trace of coolness. "Why not use snowflakes to make a winter Olympic ice and snow theme of the creative work?" Inspired by the heavy snow, Zhang Fenglan's heart lit up, and she returned to the house and quickly designed the style of snowflake disc buckle.
The buckle is part of the traditional technique of making the Beijing-style cheongsam that she excels in. Although the disc buckle shapes are diverse, for Zhang Fenglan, the snowflake style disc buckle has not been tried before.
It is not easy to make a designed snowflake buckle. The buckle is mainly handmade, and the basic material only the wire strip has to be polished through 24 processes. Starting from the fabric, the silk should be brushed 4 times to harden the paste, cut the strip, sew, put in the copper wire, and then through the high temperature ironing composite double-sided lining and other steps, in order to make the plate buckle.
After the plate was made, Zhang Fenglan led her apprentices to make these plate discs into the shape of snowflakes, and even skilled apprentices had to spend at least 2 hours to make a complete snowflake plate buckle.
Why is it so time-consuming? Zhang Fenglan explained that there are two major difficulties in the production process: First, compared with the brooch that only shows one side, the snowflake pendants and earrings made of snowflake disc buckles must be displayed on both sides, which cannot expose the sewn thread, and the technique of stealing needles needs to be used. Second, there are many heart-shaped intarsia buckles in the snowflake disc buckle, which requires the cotton to be twisted into the corresponding pattern, and then sewn by hand for shaping, which requires a lot of effort and painstaking effort.
Designed and produced by her and her team to welcome the opening of the Beijing Winter Olympics, the 200-day and 100-day snowflake disc buckle works, which gathered 200 and 100 heart-shaped flower buckles respectively, are now displayed in the Shijingshan District Cultural Center.
Zhang Fenglan has a fondness for fashion design since childhood, graduated from junior high school and was admitted to Huangzhuang Vocational High School to study fashion design and craftsmanship, because of her excellent grades, she stayed in school as a teacher. In 2006, Zhang Fenglan began to dabble in the production of Beijing-style qipao, and in 2015, she studied under Lie kan, the fourth generation inheritor of the Beijing-style qipao, becoming the fifth generation of the traditional Beijing-style qipao production skills, and has since formed an indissoluble relationship with the Beijing-style qipao.
In the production of Beijing-style qipao, Zhang Fenglan is good at innovating the old, not only improving the design style of modern qipao to make it more in line with the aesthetics of modern women, but also developing a series of cultural and creative derivatives with disc buckles as the core based on the qipao, including the Winter Olympic Snowflake series of cultural and creative works. "I am a native of Shijingshan, so many years, I have seen the great changes brought to the city by the Winter Olympics, and the small snowflake buckle not only pins my good wishes for the Winter Olympics, but also tells my love and expectations for the city." Zhang Fenglan said.