Silk culture, blooming charm in fashion (creative transformation and innovative development)

The picture shows a silk weaving machine. The picture shows the exhibits of the 2021 China International Silk Expo. The picture shows Shu embroidery. Data picture Caption Source: Image China

Core reading

In the long process of development, silk has been given a rich cultural connotation, and its appearance has also changed with the times, releasing new vitality

Today, when actively promoting the construction of ecological civilization, silk culture has shown its style in fashion trends with the green concept of traditional handicrafts

What we provide to the world is not only silk as a fabric, but also a silk culture that embodies inheritance and innovation, condensing the wisdom of generations of Chinese technical practice and cultural creation

Meticulous, meticulous, intricate, icing on the cake... There are nearly 100 idioms related to "silk" in Chinese, and there are countless Chinese characters with "纟" as a side. Mainland silk culture has a long history, broad and profound, from the excavated silkworm silk culture remains, "silkworm pattern ivory cap shaped device" is about 7,000 years old, the first artificially cut cocoon in human history is nearly 6,000 years old. In the long process of development, silk has been given a rich cultural connotation, and its appearance has also changed with the times, releasing new vitality.

Cultural heritage comes to life

Silk has the unique characteristics of long production process, technical difficulty and high artistic aesthetics. Through complex, meticulous and ingenious procedures, the industrious and intelligent people of ancient China extracted elegant, soft and flowing silk from natural life, and woven them into ingenious and beautiful silk, leaving a lot of cultural heritage for today's people. The "Sanji Fish Pond System in Huzhou, Zhejiang" has been recognized as a globally important agricultural cultural heritage by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, "Chinese traditional mulberry silk weaving technique" and "Nanjing Yunjin weaving technique" have been included in the UNESCO Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, and Shu Jin, Song Jin, Yun Jin, Xiang Yun Sha, Hang Luo, Silk And Su Embroidery have been rated as national intangible cultural heritage projects.

The cultural heritage of these silk fields is combined with contemporary life and modern craftsmanship, and it is constantly rejuvenated. As one of the few agricultural cultural heritages with a history of more than 2,500 years in the mainland and even in the world, the "Zhejiang Huzhou Sanji Fish Pond System" has created the benefits of "both benefits and ten times the crops" through the model of "planting mulberries on the base, feeding silkworms with mulberry leaves, cultivating fish in silkworm sand, fish manure ponds, and pond mud mulberries". In recent years, this agricultural cultural heritage has been further combined with modern agriculture and the construction of beautiful villages, promoting the better effectiveness of traditional Sankey fish ponds and making traditional agricultural cultural heritage "alive".

For another example, the "brocade", which represents the highest level of ancient Chinese silk weaving technology, is still active in the field of contemporary culture and art after thousands of years, constantly innovating the inheritance model.

The first is to adhere to the traditional craft route while cross-border integration. Not long ago, in the art exhibition "Extraordinary Pearl Union Art Light", Qian Xiaoping, the representative inheritor of the national intangible cultural heritage project Song Jin, used Song Jin's skills to express the italian painter Modigliani's series of works. In the silk line light and shadow, the standing sense of the original character image is highlighted, showing the charm of the fusion of Eastern and Western art.

The second is to innovate technological means and prosper the modern brocade industry. "Nishiki" is valued in silk for its complex weaving and rich colors. Brocade craft expert Li Jialin invented the "five-color interweaving method", which changed the silk weaving image expression method and the traditional brocade production method that have been used by various countries for more than 100 years, creating more than 4500 colors. In his hands, he gave birth to modern brocade works such as the silk weaving long scroll "Qingming Upper River Map" and the colorful brocade painting "Fuchun Mountain Jutu".

In addition, people have also improved the production method of silk to better meet the market consumer demand. Xiangyun yarn, which has been passed down for more than 600 years and is known as the "soft gold" of the silk industry, was originally the crystallization of collective labor. The production of traditional Xiangyun yarn generally requires dozens of craftsmen to operate at the same time, and it also has to go through nearly a year of "three washing, nine steaming and eighteen drying". Pure handmade and ultra-long production cycle, Xiangyun yarn has been produced very low and expensive for hundreds of years. In recent years, people have greatly improved the production efficiency and output of Xiangyun yarn by improving dyeing and weaving techniques, and the production cost has also been reduced, and Xiangyun yarn has entered more ordinary people's homes.

Fashion trends are on the move

Today, when actively promoting the construction of ecological civilization, silk culture has shown its style in fashion trends with the green concept of traditional handicrafts. With silk as an important fabric, "Hanfu", "Qipao" and "New Chinese Clothing" are leading the continuous innovation of traditional clothing culture.

In 2014, its roots are "Zhong", its soul is "Li", and its shape is "New", which is used as the clothing of APEC leaders to show the Chinese costume to the world. In recent years, the "Hanfu fever" has gradually risen, and activities such as "China Chinese Costume Day" and "National Silk Hanfu Festival" have attracted many young people to participate and are deeply loved. With this, the "qipao style" that is popular at home and abroad, and now, the qipao has evolved into a formal dress for women. In this new trend of clothing, whether it is a new chinese dress that highlights the temperament, or a wide and flowing Hanfu, a gentle cheongsam, silk is an indispensable material - showing the beauty of oriental silk has become an international fashion. For example, Nanjing Yunjin, which is "inches of gold", is an important Chinese element in today's international fashion industry.

From the World Expo, international film festivals to international fashion weeks, Chinese silk represented by Yunjin Huafu is constantly interpreting the innovative integration of tradition and trend, shaping and interpreting the fashion "Chinese style". At the same time, a series of traditional Chinese brands have hatched and grown, silk elements have been applied in fashion, clothing and home design, and ancient silk has embarked on the road of fashion industry. For example, Suzhou Dongwu Silk Weaving Factory, founded in 1919, Nanjing Yunjin Research Institute, founded in 1957, and Chengdu Shujin Factory, founded in 1951, are now transformed into innovative enterprises, winning development opportunities in the domestic and international markets and interpreting contemporary fashion life.

Technology empowers silk to be reborn

Integrate with science and technology to open up new ways for silk culture and make it better serve contemporary life. In recent years, silk innovation technologies and extension industries such as mulberry leaf tea, artificial intelligence custom silk, and "silk hard disk" have continued to emerge. The mulberry leaf tea refined by scientific baking and other processes has a mellow taste and pleasant fragrance. Artificial intelligence "fashion designers" can deeply understand consumer personality characteristics and dressing needs through dialogue, and combine fashion trends to design unique digital art scarves. Mainland scientific research units have also developed "silk hard disks", which use silk as a storage medium like optical discs to write and read digital information on it.

Technological updates and iterations expand the application scenarios of silk, and the formulation and release of silk inspection technical standards continue to enhance the international influence of Chinese silk. In 2014, the first international silk standard was developed and implemented by China. The electronic testing technology of raw silk contained in this standard is led by China in scientific research and has been recognized by the international silk industry, which is of great significance for improving the quality level of raw silk in various countries in the world, promoting silk economic and trade exchanges, and enhancing the international influence of Chinese silk. More than 2,000 years ago, the Silk Road achieved the world's magnificent imagination of the East. Today, under the "Belt and Road" initiative, the economic and trade exchanges and people-to-people exchanges between countries along the route are becoming more and more frequent, and many silk producing and consuming countries are carrying out close exchanges and cooperation in technical brands, creative design, history and culture, marketing brands and other aspects, and the cultural spirit of the Silk Road has once again become a link and bridge for cross-cultural exchanges.

Silk is a great invention of the Chinese nation and a cultural symbol of Chinese civilization. As a big producer and exporter of silkworm silk raw materials, we provide the world with silk not only as a fabric, but also a silk culture that embodies inheritance and innovation, condensing the wisdom of generations of Chinese technology practice and cultural creation. Looking to the future, the ancient silk culture will surely bloom with new brilliance on the road of inheritance and innovation.

(The author is an associate professor at Zhejiang Sci-Tech University)

Draft: Zhao Kairu

People's Daily ( 2022-02-25 20th edition)