"National Tide" Tie-dye Enters the Life of Young People

Tie-dyeing is the wisdom crystallization of the inheritance of Chinese traditional skills. For thousands of years, tie-dyeing skills have continued to evolve, not only inheriting folk customs and aesthetic tastes, but also playing a positive role in promoting local economic recovery and developing cultural brands.

Tie-dyeing is the wisdom crystallization of the inheritance of Chinese traditional skills. For thousands of years, tie-dyeing skills have continued to evolve, not only inheriting folk customs and aesthetic tastes, but also playing a positive role in promoting local economic recovery and developing cultural brands.

In Nantong, Jiangsu Province, tie-dyeing was once a local foreign exchange earning project, which led to economic development. However, with the reduction of export orders, Nantong tie-dyeing brand, which has entered a low ebb, is reborn in danger and seeking innovation and change. It not only actively promotes the development of "national tide", but also vigorously carries out various activities to inject energy into the protection of intangible cultural heritage skills and the relay inheritance of young talents, promote the transformation of intangible cultural heritage tie-dyeing skills into cultural soft power, and stimulate and mobilize traditional textile crafts into contemporary life.

Traditional skills helped boost economic recovery

Tie-dyeing is a traditional Han folk fabric dyeing technique, which is called Tie Valerian and Tie Valerian in ancient times. That is, when the fabric is dyed, part of the fabric is tied up so that it cannot be colored. Tie-dyeing has more than 100 kinds of combination and change techniques, which can make the dyed fabric halo rich, natural and interesting. Even if thousands of flowers are tied up, none of them are the same after dyeing. This unique artistic effect is difficult to achieve by mechanical printing and dyeing process.

In our country, tie-dyeing has a history of thousands of years. During the Northern and Southern Dynasties, tie-dyeing was widely used in Han women's clothing. In the Tang Dynasty, twisted valerian textiles were very popular and more common. In 1974, Jiangsu Nantong Institute of Arts and Crafts successfully developed tie-dye garment production techniques based on tie-dye samples brought by foreign businessmen and began to accept foreign orders, making important contributions to Nantong's economic development. In 2011, Nantong tie-dyeing techniques declared by Haian County, Nantong City were included in the Jiangsu Provincial Intangible Cultural Heritage List. Tie-dyeing shows a strong folk art style, and the unique patterns reflect the Chinese people's customs and aesthetic taste, while the modern tie-dyeing represented by Nantong tie-dyeing skills is an important pillar to promote local economic recovery.

As one of the first 14 coastal open cities in the country, relevant enterprises in Nantong have established trade exchanges with Japan for tie-dyeing products." Jia Jingsheng, a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts of Tsinghua University, said that with the increase in orders, there are new requirements for processing plants in Nantong. In 1977, Nantong City built a tie dyeing factory. In 1979, Haian County built a tie dyeing factory. On December 7, 1979, a meeting was held on the selection of tie-dye processing sites. Nantong, Wujiang and Haian became tie-dye garment processing sites. According to the records of Haian County, in 1987, Haian County had 3 tie-dyeing enterprises, 527 employees, 17480 outward processing personnel and an output value of 42.2081 million yuan, which made great contributions to Jiangsu's economic recovery.

"National Tide" Brand Opens a New Window for Communication

In the late 1980 s and early 1990 s, with the weakening of foreign trade demand, Haian tie-dye was in trouble and entered a transition period. "In 1993, after I was ordered to take over the Haian Tie Dyeing Factory as the director of the county party committee organization department in the face of danger, I carried out market-oriented transformation while digging and sorting kimono making skills and exploring the integration of traditional crafts and modern clothing. After continuous reform and evolution, tie-dyeing enterprises have emerged one after another, and in 2006, Haian Tie Dyeing Factory was renamed Jiangsu Huayi Group." Tai Weiguo, chairman of Huayi Group, introduced.

"In recent years, we have continuously absorbed traditional skills such as traditional dyeing, weaving and embroidery, established modern enterprise system and scientific management, carried out the practice of marketization of traditional skills, and widely applied the visual differentiation creativity of products and cross-border innovation achievements of fashion to knitting, woven, ruffled, sweaters, home textiles, etc, it has formed a market operation system that integrates intangible cultural heritage innovation and R & D design, digital technology, production intelligence, integrated marketing, and channel construction." Tai Weiguo said that Huayi Group, which has a history of more than 40 years, knows that non-genetic inheritance must not only work hard in protecting skills, but also strive for breakthroughs in the innovation of "living" integration into contemporary life. While exploring the integration of tie-dyeing skills into tie-dyeing innovation and fashion applications in Nantong, Huayi Group has created an integrated innovation platform of "artistic dyeing and finishing" by integrating characteristic resources such as crochet, knitting, hand embroidery, nail beads and blue dyeing in Nantong, providing intangible cultural heritage fashion research and development design think tanks for excellent clothing brands and injecting excellent traditional cultural elements into local original brands.

On this basis, Huayi Group established the "Shadow" women's clothing brand in 2010. "Nongying is characterized by Nantong tie-dyed intangible cultural heritage. It skillfully combines the humanistic spirit of oriental art with fashion elements suitable for modern aesthetics to meet the needs of young people who are keen on the" national tide." Tai Weiguo said that based on the innovation of Chinese art tie-dyeing skills, the visual keywords of "water", "fog", "shadow", "painting" and "quality" are used to recreate fabrics artistically and advocate oriental aesthetics and poetic life.

Exploring New Ideas of Non-genetic Inheritance with Competition Innovation

Tai Weiguo noted that most of the tie-dye craftsmen of Huayi Group are over 50 years old, and the talent problem of inheriting intangible cultural heritage skills may be the key to the next stage of work. In order to protect and inherit the skill of tie-dyeing, recently, under the guidance of the China Textile Industry Federation and the Jiangsu Hai'an Municipal Government, the "Huayi Cup" National Textile Intangible Cultural Heritage Office hosted by the China Textile Industry Federation and Jiangsu Huayi Group The Invitational Competition for Tie-Dyeing Vocational Skills was launched. The "Huayi Cup" National Textile Intangible Cultural Heritage Tie-Dyeing Vocational Skills Invitational Tournament takes "Tie-Dyeing and Contemporary Life" as the theme, and aims to promote the role of talent training through skill competitions, innovate the way of spreading tie-dyeing skills, and promote traditional skills into contemporary life. "The purpose of holding the' Huayi Cup' National Textile Intangible Cultural Heritage Tie-Dyeing Vocational Skills Invitational Tournament is to discover more tie-dyeing talents." Ge Kunfeng, general manager of the Enterprise Management Center of Jiangsu Huayi Group, introduced that in this invitational competition, participants are required to "have been engaged in manual printing and dyeing related work for more than 3 years", which is to explore the real love of tie-dyeing skills and are interested in this field. Development of talents.

"Non-heritage techniques are the embodiment of the production and lifestyle of the Chinese nation for generations, reflecting the wisdom and aesthetic changes of this ancient nation. Textile non-heritage, including weaving, dyeing, printing and embroidery, is one of the most widely used contemporary techniques, and people's daily lives cannot be separated from clothing, home textiles and other textile products." Sun Huaibin, vice president and researcher of China Textile Industry Federation, said that as an industry association, China Textile Industry Federation has been committed to promoting the overall development and innovation of textile intangible cultural heritage for many years. The annual China Textile Intangible Cultural Heritage Conference is the only brand conference held by national industry organizations in the current intangible cultural heritage category in China, It has built a communication platform for the inheritance and development of textile intangible cultural heritage. In Sun Huaibin's view, the holding of textile intangible cultural heritage events is a positive response to the "Opinions on Further Strengthening the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage" that "it is necessary to guide social forces to participate in the protection of intangible cultural heritage, give full play to the role of industry organizations, and encourage enterprises The legal and rational use of intangible cultural heritage resources by public institutions is a specific measure called for by the formation of institutional mechanisms and social environment conducive to the protection and inheritance, it is also a useful exploration to broaden the path of non-heritage technology dissemination and inheritance, stimulate the enthusiasm of non-heritage innovation, and expand the scope of tie-dyeing technology dissemination.

Lu Yin, deputy director of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Office of the China Textile Federation, introduced that the "Huayi Cup" National Textile Intangible Cultural Heritage Tie Dyeing Vocational Skills Invitational Tournament will play the role of "Association University Enterprises" to explore tie dyeing in a more comprehensive, professional and vertical way. The new force of skills. "Taking tie-dyeing as an incision, we will explore the role of intangible cultural heritage professional skills competitions in promoting the inheritance, dissemination, and innovative development of intangible cultural heritage projects, and open up new ideas for the problems faced by some intangible cultural heritage projects." She said.

Source: China Culture News