Zhang Zhifeng: Learning Ancient Skills From Clothing Collection

Every year, the brand of Beijing fashion week's opening show is NE TIGER, and fashion circles are honored by the invitation letter from this show.

As director of design for NE TIGER, Zhang Zhifeng has not simply displayed Chinese elements in his design, but has shown more the essence of Chinese traditional culture and the foundation of Sinology.

Therefore, this year's design theme is named "Tang Jing".

Among his more than 300 collections of Chinese clothing, the most important thing he gained was creativity and realm.

Every dress is the story of the ancients.

Zhang Zhifeng is a well-known buyer of major clothing auctions. In fact, Zhang Zhifeng is the most distinctive among all buyers because his collection is only for research purposes, not for investment and appreciation, so Zhang Zhifeng is highly respected in the clothing collection circle.

Because of this fame, many people have come to trust and trust their ancestral clothes to Zhang Zhifeng for their research and reasonable safekeeping.

Collecting clothing is a very careful job. "With the loss of time, these fabrics have become very fragile and will be broken if they are careless."

Of the collections of Zhang Zhifeng, more than 200 have been able to determine the value of collection.

Many people in the circle know that Zhang Zhifeng is a real person who can read these ancient clothes and study and inherit the clothing culture.

Zhang Zhifeng's collection is very orientated, that is, ancient Chinese clothing and costumes, which include people from all walks of life and all kinds of occupations.

From the royal family to the Buyi, these ancient clothes and their stories were collected by Zhang Zhifeng in layers.

"I can often see from these costumes how people lived in the past, what stories they had happened, and even had a dialogue with ancient culture through time and space."

Zhang Zhifeng often studied ancient production and embroidery techniques, and pplanted them to the present design. "When I saw these collections, I often felt the ancients.

There is a hundred bird suit in his collection.

The so-called white bird clothing is the entire dress embroidered hundreds of birds, this is the custom of the Song Dynasty - the queen wore a hundred bird clothing, and has been extended to the Ming Dynasty.

"In this 100 bird suit, each bird has different looks and gestures."

Zhang Zhifeng was very impressed by the imagination of embroidery workers. "In today's society, it is hard for anyone to maintain such a calm state of mind, concentrating on embroidery, concentrating not only on embroidery as a job, but also on an artistic creation."

Although embroidery has been studied for many years, Zhang Zhifeng often regrets that ancient embroidery techniques are still difficult.

For another dress embroidered with peony bloom, Zhang Zhifeng is amazed: "a peony, embroidered with 8 levels, 8 different colors, so that peony is lifelike, full of three-dimensional feeling."

Due to the professional requirements of fashion designers, Zhang Zhifeng began collecting and researching ancient costume and clothing ten years ago.

His brand, NE TIGER, also plays an important role in the first show of Beijing fashion week every year.

The higher the status of the fashion industry, the more indifferent Zhang Zhifeng is.

In the fashion circle, Zhang Zhifeng is one of the few people who do not want to be flashy. In simple clothes, he often talks about the spirit of the ancients with the master of Chinese studies, and studies the different state of mind of Zhang Zhifeng given by Sinology.

Zhang Zhifeng never shows off his collection to the outside world, even if it is mentioned.

Costumes and Sinology are more like a way leading to the ancients' mood. With the increase of research, Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism are also infiltrated into his blood.

"Studying ancient clothes will make my mood calm down immediately."

Zhang Zhifeng usually takes half a month to close his cell phone, only with his brushes and collections, eating only one meal a day, resting at the same time just meditating.

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Zhang Zhifeng believed that modern industry could not produce products that were close to ancient ideas.

Therefore, in the fashion customization, he is willing to go far and wide to find the most experienced and capable embroidery maker.

While copying ancient embroidery skills, Zhang Zhifeng first copied "mood".

NE TIGER staff first found the best old artists in embroidery at the qiangzhai village.

They set up a embroidery team for NE TIGER and embroidered them according to orders.

"The first thing to do is to change the concept of embroidery among these folk artists."

Zhang Zhifeng said, "these folk artists have been engaged in embroidery for many years, but most of their embroidery works are tourist souvenirs, which are very rough.

I told them that what we want is quality, and the indoctrination of this idea is not easy.

So Zhang Zhifeng paid the old artists more production costs, hoping that they could embroider different works. "But it is still very difficult. The old artists will find it strange that they can only get more income by slowly embroidering."

Sometimes, Zhang Zhifeng even risked the collapse of the highway to go to Wenchuan Qiang village. What he did was to communicate with the embroidery workers.

Through the ancient clothing and apparel

In 2011, in China's national propaganda film, Zhang Zhifeng used the exquisite brocade of "inch Jin Jin Cun" and "Silk saint" in the production of exquisite traditional Chinese costumes.

In the design, elegance, elegance, noble atmosphere, Oriental charm and Chinese style beauty illustrate the beauty of Chinese clothing elements.

In 2010, Zhang Zhifeng presented the private collection of "Luan Feng, double peony" silk dresses, which was designed by NE TIGER, to the capital museum as a permanent collection of collections.

This red silk dress shows Phoenix and peony patterns with 7 kinds of silk technology. 7 kinds of silk dresses are stitched together by sewing techniques that have been lost for hundreds of years. They are called "seamless".

Zhang Zhifeng has always wanted his collection not only to hide in the underground room, "I am waiting for a suitable time to display the collection, so that China's exquisite clothing production technology is displayed in front of the world."