Shanghai Textile Industry Takes A New Road Of Combining "Technology And Fashion"

"Songjiang Cloth of the Ming Dynasty has a good reputation in the world of clothing." Walk into Shanghai, 150 Macao Road spin The first thing that came into view in the museum was the sentence in the general introduction. In the exhibition area on the two floors, from the amount of cloth pattern pottery in the Warring States Period, to the collection of the earliest textile products "Yuan Gem" in Shanghai, and to the material objects of the textile industry reform in the 1990s, a small textile museum shows the historical changes of Shanghai's textile industry over the centuries.

Shanghai Textile Museum is located in the original site of Shenxin No. 9 Textile Factory with a history of 130 years, covering 6800 square meters and 4800 square meters of exhibition area. In the eyes of Jiang Changning, the Executive Deputy Curator, a history of the development of China's textile industry has always been accompanied by the rise and fall of China's economy for hundreds of years. "In the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, the troika of China's foreign trade was ceramics, silk and tea, of which textile accounted for 90% of the total export." It is not difficult to understand that there was a saying that "Su Song taxes half the world", in which "Su" refers to southern Jiangsu, Song refers to today's Shanghai, and "the most important industry in Su Song is textile industry".

When it comes to the cotton textile industry, we must mention Huang Daopo, the "ancestor of cloth industry". Huang Daopo was a cotton weaver at the end of the Song Dynasty and the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty. She taught the world advanced textile technology and promoted advanced three spindle spinning machines, which were respected by generations of people. During the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, the people built the "Huangmu Temple" in memory of her. The Huajing people in Songjiang also carved a pair of gate piers with precious Taihu square stones. These original gate piers are now collected in the Textile Museum. "This also makes the head of the Huang Daopo Memorial Hall feel envious and jealous."

Among the dazzling display contents, the most precious collection is quietly hidden near the wall on the second floor. This is a set of imported teak furniture consisting of a long table, 12 square chairs and a small square table. Historically, it was used by Li Hongzhang, Sheng Xuanhuai and others to prepare for the establishment of Shanghai Machine Weaving Bureau in 1878. At that time, Li Hongzhang was preparing to set up the first power weaving factory in modern times. Liu Ruifen, who was then in Shanghai Daotai, was Li's aide, so he gave this set of furniture to his teacher. It was not only Li Hongzhang's conference table, but also his negotiating table with Westerners.

The reporter observed that this set of well preserved furniture, the system of long wooden table and surrounding chairs, is a typical European style of table, but after careful study, he found that each chair back and stool foot are engraved with classics of mountains and seas, Fengshen list, peony pavilion and other Chinese classical literature stories. The most curious thing is that on the small square table placed on one side, the square table is engraved with Chinese patterns. After the table rotates 45 degrees clockwise, the table can be opened one more layer outward to form a mahjong table just enough for four people to learn, and the drawer for chips can be pulled out at the bottom. Not to mention, if you lean down to look closely, the table is supported by a European leg called "Louis XIV".

Jiang Changning, the executive vice curator of the Textile Museum, said that this set of furniture, "unparalleled in the world", was made by China from the West Imported The first batch of teak furniture of the Westernization Movement, which is a combination of Chinese and Western styles, is in line with the Westernization Movement's idea of "making foreign things serve China", and contains rich cultural information and political elements. "For example, the arrangement of bar tables and chairs is just in line with the form of Western round table conferences, reflecting the political information of democracy and republicanism. However, two chairs at both ends have backrests, and the chairs on both sides have no backrests, which implies an orderly oriental cultural tradition of dignity and inferiority.".

It is recorded that after the outbreak of the First World War, the import of cotton textiles from foreign countries into China declined sharply, so the prices of yarn and cloth soared. With the influence of the anti imperialist patriotic movement, Shanghai's national textile industry entered a golden age after the 1920s, and the textile industry became Shanghai's "mother industry". An interesting phenomenon is that in 1930, the people of Shanghai "publicly recommended direct election" and chose cotton as the city flower of Shanghai, which shows the prosperity of cotton textile industry.

The rise of the textile industry has driven the development of finance, logistics, shipbuilding and other industries, and also injected impetus into the development of modern cities. For example, the first tram in Shanghai was driven from Yangshupu Road to the line of Dongxing Bridge, because there were a lot of textile factories in Yangshupu at that time. This modern means of transportation called "dangdang cars" by Shanghai people was just to meet the needs of textile workers for commuting.

Walking in the textile museum, some unique physical exhibits often make people sigh. For example, a Hibiscus coat once worn by Li Hongzhang's daughter-in-law is still fashionable and luxurious, which makes people feel the fashion of Shanghai's textile technology for centuries. In an inconspicuous glass window on the second floor, there is also a piece of slightly yellow paper, which was the first economic census conducted by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce of the National Government in 1927 and a questionnaire made to a textile enterprise in Shanghai. It is such a thin questionnaire that once made a Taiwan 90 year old man look at it for several hours. "I asked the old man what he was looking at. He said that I was thinking about the governance of the government at that time." Jiang Changning was impressed that the border area government also made an economic survey during the Yan'an period. At that time, there was a large amount of survey data about an enterprise. In comparison, the elements in the survey table of the National Government were too simple and careless.

In the 1990s, the once brilliant textile industry of Shanghai carried out a magnificent reform with the courage of breaking the wrist. At Shenxin No. 9 Textile Factory, where the Textile Museum is located, Shanghai textile workers smashed familiar textile machines, opening up a difficult transition from labor-intensive to capital and technology intensive industries in Shanghai. Before the physical sculpture of the textile mill's "first hammer for pressing ingots", many people could not help feeling that this hammer has created a new development space for Shanghai.

After more than ten years of transformation, Shanghai The textile industry has explored a new way to combine technology with fashion. In the museum, visitors can see such well-known time-honored brands as "Peromon", "Three Guns", "Ancient and Modern", and also see the "unique weapon" of Shanghai textile technology applied in high-end materials, such as throat lining of the jet nozzle when the Long March rocket was launched, membrane structure on the "Water Cube" of Beijing Olympic Games, and artificial blood vessels in modern medical surgery.