Gina Corrigan will be taking as her topic the Miao minority inhabiting the remote mountains of South-West China, who are renowned for their particularly rich textile traditions.
They use hemp and ramie to make yarn, which is woven into fabric. Some groups near larger centres use cotton which is dyed with vegetable indigo dyes, which they make themselves.
Their clothes are cut from handloom pieces using ingenious patterns to utilise every piece of cloth. The clothes are embellished with superb embroidery, each group having a different style of decorative motif, incorporating spectacular colours and designs.
Others use imaginative supplementary-weft woven pieces. These traditions continue today but they have been affected by change.
From 1988, with the development of tourism and the growing modern economy of Guizhou, the Miao were suddenly being catapulted into the modern world.
However, many still live in relatively remote mountain communities, their textile traditions remaining intact.
Textile Society Of Hong Kong
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