How are Hong Kong secondary school students inspired by Chinese art and culture in designing new fashion?

Abstract

Chinese traditional culture has been widely used and provides a rich resource for modern fashion design. Through the “Stitchable Chinese Art” fashion design competition 2024, organized by the Arts Education Section of the Education Bureau and the School of Fashion and Textiles of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, secondary school students deeply explored the meanings embedded in traditional Chinese culture and create new fashion styles with distinct Chinese characteristics. This study aimed to motivate students’ appreciation of Chinese art and culture and investigate how Hong Kong secondary students were inspired when designing new fashionable clothing. Mixed research methods were adopted. The quantitative method was used to analyze all 844 submitted works to determine the most frequently used Chinese artistic and cultural themes. Qualitative methods, comprising an in-depth examination of the 30 shortlisted design works, were used to identify how inspiration was drawn from traditional Chinese cultural elements. The key findings suggest that their most favorable design elements are: the conventional dragon as the main design inspiration; cheongsam style as the core silhouette; red as the major color; embroidery patterns as the featured design detail and silk fabric as the foremost fabrication.