customise your zha-ran

When I keep going with the journey of exploring all the possibilities of zha-ran innovation, I noticed that young generation is very fond of unique or customized designs to present their identities.

So now I came up with the idea of zha-ran 2020 Nature Collection. With the combination of tie-dye fabric and gold, the design conveyed the message of ‘the beauty of tradition’.

Processed with VSCO with g3 preset
Processed with VSCO with g3 preset

During the whole process of my exploration, I realized that there are a lot of opportunities to bring traditional tie-dye into our sight and Chinese zha-ran is not an “out-of-date” textile dyeing technique or a local craft but more like an art form and an expression that young generation can be interested and an organic lifestyle.

Reflective report

Due to the garment industrialization and the lack of marketing promotion and innovation, zha-ran (a Chinese traditional stitch-resist tie-dye textile art form), one of the hidden jewels among Chinese intangible culture heritages, is started to disappear in our modern lives. From the journals I read and the interviews I had with zha-ran textile factories and museums, it also showed there is a tendency that young generation is no longer interested or aware of this 1500-thousand-year old tie-dye technique anymore. So ‘how to revive the sustainable development of Zha-ran among young generation?’ became to my question.

“It is so difficult these days to find young apprentices who can stay in our village and learn zha-ran.” Duan Shukun, the founder of Bai Ethnic Group zha-ran Museum in Dali, SW China and the owner of Puzhen Dali Tie-dye textile factory expressed his concerns when I was interviewing him. Based on my qualitative research, I found out zha-ran textile is losing the market share in fabric industry and facing the threat to pass on to the young generation.

Besides, as a journalist over 6 years in China, I noticed many of our precious cultural traditional heritages we have for ages are facing tremendous difficulties to survive nowadays.  Therefore, I devoted myself to do this project as a long-term practice and see if I could make any progress for the sustainable development of Chinese traditional textile art.

In the beginning of my research, I sent online questionnaires to college students to ask what’s their impression about tie-dye. “Cheap” and “hippy” are the most frequently used words for the description. And after I showed the pictures of Chinese zha-ran, most of them are surprised and described it as “elegant” and “artistic”, which I believe that is a good sign to bring the closer connection between traditional Chinese tie-dye and young generation.

Furthermore, I interviewed Wendy Garrity, the founder of Textile Trails website which shared various knowledge about textile culture around the world and she went to Dali to learn zha-ran and filmed it. After I talked about my research question and ideas, Wendy gave me positive feedbacks. “I do believe the potential of Chinese tie-dye and I think it is important to let more young people, especially the local to learn, to join.” Wendy said.

Online Museum

From the secondary research, I learnt that social media can play a very important platform for me to carry out my intervention to promote Chinese tie-dye. Therefore, I choose two most popular social media platforms, Tiktok and Instagram, to register Chinese tie-dye account, as an ‘online museum’ to show and share what zha-ran is and what innovative design we could have to arouse the attention for Chinese tie-dye. Due to the Covid situation, I had to count on my stakeholders to supply me firs-hand pictures and videos, so I can build up the basic structure of this ‘online museum’ to support my first-step intervention. Thanks to the support of Dali Zha-ran museum, the only national museum about Chinese tie-dye in China, I received a lot of original documents about Chinese tie-dye art pieces which I could use to edit and post on Tiktok and Instagram.

During the past few months, I received more and more likes and comments. “Before I only seen Zha-ran as a local souvenir in Yunnan to represent their Bai ethnic group culture. But the story behind made me want to know more about zha-ran. If I will have chances in the future, I would love to go to Dali and make one zha-ran scarf for myself.” Ziyi Wang, a Chinese college student commented on my Tiktok post. Also, I received very positive feedback from my stakeholders. “Young generations spend a lot of time on social media and by using social media promotion, more and more people came to buy our products online.” Hanmin Zhang, the owner of Lanxu Zha-ran Textile company in China told me.

Live broadcast

During the summer independent study period, I joined my stakeholders to do a live broadcast on Tiktok for Chinese Intangible Cultural Heritage Festival as another intervention. I used my expertise on media to help them organizing the content, taught them how to grasp follower’s attention and we made a huge success for a half-hour online show. The followers commented as “Chinese tie-dye is incredibly beautiful”, “this is our precious culture” “we need this organic lifestyle” and etc which inspired us tremendously. During the alive broadcast, we shared the purchase website link to the followers and we sold 856 pieces of Chinese tie-dye crafts by half-an-hour alive promotion. “Apparently if we want our next generation to know about zha-ran, we need to use their way to welcome them knowing our tradition. And we should do more this type of online activities in the near future to let more young people to join us.” Shukun Duan said after the show.

Innovative designs

At the same time, I also interviewed one of the most famous Chinese tie-dye artist Fanglu Lin. She is one of the 30 finalists for the Craft Prize 2020 organized by the Loewe Foundation and her artworks about Chinese tie-dye is going to be exhibited in Paris soon. “I saw the possibility of using tie-dye technique for self-expression which is quite important for our young generation.” As a young artist, she brought a lot of creative ideas and new designs for traditional Chinese tie-dye technique. “Actually, a lot of foreigners are fascinated by our traditional culture and the Chinese tie-dye sofa I designed earned a lot of popularity from international furniture buyers.” Fanglu Lin said.

And from the conversation I had with Zara Korutz, a fashion critic, she also mentioned that tie-dye is gaining popularity by designers from luxurious brands, such as Louis Vuitton and Dior. From these luxurious brands’ new collections, we all can found tie-dye designs by their bags or garments, which is a very good sign for reviving Chinese tie-dye.

Zha-ran Butterfly Diffuser

By the interview with Fanglu, I started to think what kind of intervention can combine the traditional zha-ran with modern interior design together and attract people’s attention. I start to search and found out that “the global home fragrance market size is expected to reach USD 27.63 billion by 2027” (by Fortune Business Insights) which inspired me to create a home diffuser with zha-ran fabrics.

Customized zha-ran jewellery

When I keep going with the journey of exploring all the possibilities of zha-ran innovation, I noticed that young generation is very fond of unique or customized designs to present their identities. So now I came up with the idea of zha-ran 2020 Nature Collection. With the combination of tie-dye fabric and gold, the design conveyed the message of ‘the beauty of tradition’.

During the whole process of my exploration, I realized that there are a lot of opportunities to bring traditional tie-dye into our sight and Chinese zha-ran is not an “out-of-date” textile dyeing technique or a local craft but more like an artform and an expression that young generation can be interested and an organic lifestyle.

For my next-step intervention, I’m thinking to create an online platform to connect Chinese traditional tie-dye textile factories with young talent designers, fashion critics, artists to brainstorm more creative and innovative artworks to change the stereotype of Chinese tie-dye technique which has been seen as obsolete and ethnic souvenir. And I will try to talk to more stakeholders to see if I can make the Butterfly diffuser and zha-ran jewellery ideas into real business.

And I see this project as a long-term and sustainable project which I will keep making efforts to make progress. At the same time, I will keep gathering more stakeholders on board as a team to work on this project continuously and bring positive changes for the traditional textile art forms. And I believe I could use my project of Chinese tie-dye as a gesture to arouse people’s attention to rethink about our traditional culture and technique in old days and to open people’s mind to jump out of the box of stereotype.

Let zha-ran FLy

During this summer, I got the chance to interview one of the most famous Chinese tie-dye artist Fanglu Lin.

She is one of the 30 finalists for the Craft Prize 2020 organised by the Loewe Foundation and her artworks about Chinese tie-dye is going to be exhibited in Paris soon.

“I saw the possibility of using tie-dye technique for self-expression which is quite important for our young generation.” As a young artist, she brought a lot of creative ideas and new designs for traditional Chinese tie-dye technique. “Actually, a lot of foreigners are fascinated by our traditional culture and the Chinese tie-dye sofa I designed earned a lot of popularity from international furniture buyers.” Fanglu Lin said.

By the interview with Fanglu, I started to think what kind of intervention can combine the traditional zha-ran with modern interior design together and attract people’s attention. I start to search and found out that “the global home fragrance market size is expected to reach USD 27.63 billion by 2027” (by Fortune Business Insights) which inspired me to create a home diffuser with zha-ran fabrics.

When I keep going with the journey of exploring all the possibilities of zha-ran innovation, I noticed that young generation is very fond of unique or customised designs to present their identities. So now I came up with the idea of zha-ran 2020 Nature Collection. With the combination of tie-dye fabric and gold, the design conveyed the message of ‘the beauty of tradition’.

feedback of workshops

Shukun Duan told me there is around 50,000 to 60,000 young people come to visit the Bai Ethnic Group Zha-ran Museum each year since 2015 and there is around 10,000 among them are willing to know how to make zha-ran.

•“We see our museum as a very important workshop to attract young people come to learn. Some of them even build up their own tie-dye studio after learning the technique from our museum.”

Wu Baiyu, the professor in Yunnan University

We always encourage our students to go to villages in China to get inspired with some new ideas and to learn their local traditional cultures. If Chinese tie-dye companies are willing to offer some training opportunities, I would love to recommend my students to go.

HANMIN ZHANG, the owner of Lanxu Zha-ran Textile company in China

Last year, I was invited to be the guest speaker to Open MUJI in Kunming and I organized a small workshop with MUJI to show what is zha-ran technique. It was a huge success.

museum+workshop

During my interviews with Duan Shukun, the founder of Chinese Zha-ran National Museum, I realized the museum is not just a place to present the history, the culture and the artworks of zha-ran, but an important platform to interact with visitors and inspire them to learn how to make zha-ran.

A group of students came to visit Zha-ran Museum during Chinese National Days, And they spent a day in the museum to learn how to make zha-ran by themselves.

They wrote down the whole process of zha-ran and their own experience and ideas which is an extremely helpful influence for developing zha-ran culture in the future.

Feedback of online museum

Shukun Duan, the owner of Puzhen Zha-ran Textile company in China

“During the Covid, we cannot open the shop or museum to allow people come to visit or buy our tie-dye products. But because of the online platforms, we attracted more young people and we did a successful live broadcast to sell our zha-ran products. And some of our followers left message to ask where they can learn zha-ran which made me so excited.”

Zhoucheng Local Government

We strongly support all the creative efforts to promote our zha-ran technique and online platform is an important way to arouse more attention of our traditional zha-ran technique preservation.

social media=Online museum

From the secondary research, I learnt that social media can play a very important platform for me to carry out my intervention to promote Chinese tie-dye. Therefore, I choose two most popular social media platforms, Tiktok and Instagram, to register Chinese tie-dye account, as an ‘online museum’ to show and share what zha-ran is and what innovative design we could have to arouse the attention for Chinese tie-dye.

Due to the Covid situation, I had to count on my stakeholders to supply me firs-hand pictures and videos, so I can build up the basic structure of this ‘online museum’ to support my first-step intervention. Thanks to the support of Dali Zha-ran museum, the only national museum about Chinese tie-dye in China, I received a lot of original documents about Chinese tie-dye art pieces which I could use to edit and post on Tiktok and Instagram.

During the past few months, I received more and more likes and comments. “Before I only seen Zha-ran as a local souvenir in Yunnan to represent their Bai ethnic group culture. But the story behind made me want to know more about zha-ran. If I will have chances in the future, I would love to go to Dali and make one zha-ran scarf for myself.” Ziyi Wang, a Chinese college student commented on my Tiktok post. Also, I received very positive feedback from my stakeholders. “Young generations spend a lot of time on social media and by using social media promotion, more and more people came to buy our products online.” Hanmin Zhang, the owner of Lanxu Zha-ran Textile company in China told me.

Innovate our tradition?

During all these days, I did a lot of research about fashion design. And I found out a lot of luxury brands are combined their products with some traditional techniques, such as tie-dye.

Dior design has tie-dye style
LV handbag with the printing looks like tie-dye
Chanel chain bag with tie-dye printing

So this bring me an idea, can we innovate our traditional design and make it more diverse or fashionable?

So I interviewed Fanglu Lin, the designer of Beijing Zha-ran Culture&Arts, ltd. Apparently she did a lot of innovation about Chinese traditional tie-dye and some of her artworks won the recognition internationally.

I like to innovate our traditional tie-dye patterns and design something more modern. From the exhibition I had I can see young generation like our traditional techniques, we just need to find more ways to attract them and tell them all of these treasures are not old.

Fang lu said.

Young talent is the future of our tradition inheritance

HANMIN ZHANG(the left), the owner of Lanxu Zha-ran Textile company in China

When I had the chance talk to Hanmin, I felt like she is such a good example of how young generation can inherit our cultural heritage

She was born in Dali where is the hometown of Chinese tie-dye. After she grown up, she found a job in Beijing and she stayed there for many years until she got pregnant. When she came back to her hometown, she felt sad that she was no longer seeing zha-ran everywhere like her childhood memory. So how to make the traditional Chinese tie-dye still alive in our lives became to her goal.

‘Are we really going to watch our traditions dying in front us? Zha-ran supposed to be one of our most proud of tradition that we need to keep it and pass by to next generation.‘

In the end of 2019, Hanmin was invited to be the guest speaker to Open MUJI in Kunming, China. And she prepared a small workshop to the audiences that day.

And then I proposed to her that maybe she can look for more chances to do more workshops in different cities with more brands.

Museum is not only for tradition showing

Shukun Duan, the founder of Bai Ethnic Group Tie-dye Museum

The young generation need to know their ‘root’, the history, the culture which bring them to today.

When I was having this interview with Shukun, I was impressed by his passion of zha-ran, the Chinese tie-dye technique.

As the first national Zha-ran textile museum, Puzhen Museum is not only a place to preserve all Chinese tie-dye traditions, but an important platform to attract more people come to know about zha-ran.

So my intervention idea is can we use the museum as a place to hold workshops for young talents who wants to learn about Chinese tie-dye?

During the conversation with Shukun, he told me that there is around 50,000 to 60,000 young people come to visit the museum each year and there is around 10,000 among them are willing to learn how to make zha-ran.

And during the lock-down, the museum had to shut down without any choices. So I was proposing to make some videos online to show the museum.

扎染文化传承之璞真博物馆游学记,大理旅游攻略- 马蜂窝
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Shukun said, he believes young generation has to come to really try to make tie-dye with them and they could understand how amazing of zha-ran textile.