Lijin Elemental Garment: How The "Living Fossil" Of China'S Textile Industry Goes To The World

The model showed Li brocade element clothes at Paris Fashion Week in France. Photographed by Gao Jing, a reporter from Xinhua News Agency

Live performance scene with Li Jin elements. Picture provided by Publicity Department of Wuzhishan Municipal Party Committee

Li brocade is exquisitely woven. Photographed by Li Tianping

On December 5, the 19th ordinary session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage of UNESCO passed the review and decided to transfer the "traditional textile, dyeing, weaving and embroidery skills of the Li nationality" from the list of intangible cultural heritage in urgent need of protection to the list of representative works of intangible cultural heritage of mankind.

Tan Chaoyan, a post-90s girl who lives in Wuzhishan City, Hainan Province, was very excited when she heard the news.

The traditional spinning, dyeing, weaving and embroidering skills of the Li nationality in Hainan Province are the traditional handicrafts for the Li nationality women to use cotton, hemp and other natural fibers to make clothing and other daily necessities, and the textiles made from them are collectively called "Li brocade". Under the influence of her grandmother and mother, Tan Chaoyan learned the traditional textile, dyeing, weaving and embroidery skills of the Li nationality from childhood. Sometimes, she would hear her mother and grandmother sighing: "There are fewer and fewer young people weaving brocades now." After graduating from college, Tan Chaoyan, who likes Li brocade from the bottom of his heart, was once entangled. In 2015, Tan Chaoyan made up her mind to return to her hometown and set up a studio, dedicated to inheriting Li Jin.

It is called studio, but it is a small house with less than 10 square meters, a loom and a sewing machine. Tan Chaoyan and her mother are two people. Although the start was difficult, Tan Chaoyan did not expect that changes would come soon. With the development of inheritance and protection of intangible cultural heritage, Lijin skill learning centers and training bases have sprung up like mushrooms. Brocade, finding a market and talking about cooperation, "we are busy, and we find that more people like brocade, and villagers want to join us." In 2019, Tan Chaoyan established a Lijin Culture Company, whose sales exceeded 700000 yuan last year.

"The outstanding performance is due to another reason besides the remarkable protection effect of Lijin." Tan Chaoyan made a pass. Tan Chaoyan opened her mobile phone and showed a video to the reporter: in the series activities of Paris Fashion Week this year, models dressed in Li Jin elements walked on the catwalk.

In order to promote the fashion and internationalization of Lijin, last August, Wuzhishan City and Italian Marangoni College jointly launched an international talent training class for Lijin, which selected 30 Lijin technical talents in Hainan Province for free training for two years and four semesters. Tan Chaoyan is one of them.

"Leather and Li brocade can produce different sparks" "Different patterns in different sizes also have different aesthetic feelings"... In the class, famous foreign designers brought new ideas to Tan Chaoyan, who was inspired by every tree and grass around her. "One homework after class, I used grass beads to make accessories, woven into a waist cover, and was picked by tourists soon after I left it in the shop," Tan said.

At the beginning of September this year, Tan Chaoyan was nervous and excited when she learned that she had the opportunity to participate in the dress design of Paris Fashion Week. "After the designer has given the design drawing, we need to fill in the grid and check the paper, and then distribute the paper to the local weavers." Tan Chaoyan said that in just half a month, the students provided 10 patterns and nearly 30 fabrics. In the end, the Li brocade element costumes they participated in the design shine brilliantly in the Paris show.

"Participation in international exchange activities will not only enable more people to understand Li brocade and Li culture, but also enable inheritors of intangible cultural heritage to absorb and learn new design concepts, add fashion elements to their works, and make Li brocade skills keep pace with the times." Wang Yuzhao, deputy director of Wuzhishan Cultural Center, introduced. Since last year, Wuzhishan City has sent 4 batches of 69 person times of intangible cultural heritage talents to Milan Fashion Week in Italy to display intangible cultural heritage clothing and skills, and to participate in tourism and cultural promotion activities in Singapore and Malaysia.

On the international stage, it brought market benefits to Lijin. After the Paris Fashion Week, Tan Chaoyan soon received an invitation from a company outside the province to cooperate and planned to produce 1500 pieces of Li brocade. "I have been rushing for orders recently, and I hope Li Jin will be seen and loved by more people," Tan Chaoyan said.

"Lijin is known as the 'living fossil' of China's textile industry." According to the relevant person in charge of the Department of Tourism, Culture, Radio, Television and Sports of Hainan Province, at present, five 300 square meters Lijin art transmission halls and 16 inheritance villages have been built in six cities and counties, with more than 20000 inheritors. More than 100 primary and secondary schools across the province have carried out Lijin art practice classes, At the same time, Hainan Province is formulating the Five Year Action Plan for the Protection and Development of the Traditional Textile, Dyeing, Weaving and Embroidery Skills of the Li Nationality (2025 – 2029) to promote the comprehensive improvement of the protection and inheritance of the traditional textile, dyeing, weaving and embroidery skills of the Li nationality, and further promote the industrialization development.

(Source: People's Daily)