Conceptual embroidery for fashion in a Chinese context

Abstract

Chinese embroidery has a glorious history, which has become a rich source of inspiration for modern fashion design. However, to inherit Chinese traditional embroidery is not simply a matter of imitating its techniques and restoring its appearance, but more importantly it is to carry forward its substance and key cultural values, as embroidery is an activity that combines art, craft, design and culture. This research heads out by making a comparative study between Chinese and Western embroidery, so as to gain a deeper understanding of the concept of embroidery, and set the foundation for the study. From the rich resources of Chinese culture and the beauty of Chinese traditional embroidery, a new embroidery design concept is developed for contemporary fashion embroidery design. Embroidery involves a design process that runs from initially defining the artistic concept all the way through to implementation of the design concept. During the design process, it is common that fashion and embroidery designers tend to follow their artistic intuition and experience, which may lack a controlling strategy to take them through the whole design process. This study generalizes an embroidery design process model by case studies and experimentation methods. The design process model, together with the parameters analysis method (PAM), creates a control mechanism system that can be beneficial to designers to capture the design features, and to work as an overall control mechanism throughout the design process in fulfillment of the design concept. Finally, the study is reinforced by the fortification of case studies and experimental methods to support and verify the results of the conceptual design process model.