A press conference for Chuxiong Fashion Week is underway in Beijing on December 27 (COURTESY PHOTO)

From December 30 to January 5, 2024, Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture in southwest China's Yunnan Province will host a fashion week featuring the staple styles from a range of ethnic groups.

China is home to 56 such groups, the biggest of which is the Han--making up about 91 percent of the mainland’s population, according to the seventh national census conducted in 2020.

With no less than 32 shows, Chuxiong Fashion Week aims to showcase the beauty and significance of the embroidery of the Yi ethnic group, plus the clothing crafts of several other ethnic groups, including the Korean from northeast China and the Li from the country's southernmost province of Hainan.

The week will also feature the visual splendor of ethnic groups from Malaysia, Laos, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Viet Nam and Thailand, who will take their traditional costumes to the stage. In addition to the runway, the fashion week will also include activities such as livestreaming and a short video contest.

Chuxiong is one of the two Yi autonomous prefectures in China, and is prestigious for its embroidery works of Yi people. With ancestral skills, Yi people needle nature designs onto their costumes and art crafts, such as flowers, butterflies, birds, tigers and cats, as well as the sun, moon and stars.

Jin Ruirui, an inheritor of Yi embroidery, expressed her confidence in the promising future of Yi embroidery. "I am the eighth generation of Yi embroiderers in my family, and I returned to my hometown in 2014 to start up an Yi embroidery business," Jin said. "With the boom of the Yi embroidery business, more workers like me will be able to support their families." One major plus here is that they can do so without having to seek employment in cities far away from home and therefore won't have to leave their children or parents behind for months on end.

"Chuxiong Fashion Week is one of the steps to promote the Yi ethnic embroidery culture and transform the prefecture into a capital of creative ethnic culture in southwest China," Zhang Wenwang, commissioner of Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture, told a press conference for the fashion week in Beijing on December 27.

Representatives wearing traditional Yi and Li costumes set up their displays at the press conference on December 27 (COURTESY PHOTO)

In recent years, the government has stepped up efforts to promote Yi embroidery, including the establishment of an Yi embroidery industrial park where related businesses can share resources, special loans for embroidery workers, the publication of three complete series of Yi cultural products, and the exploration of an Yi embroidery immersive sightseeing route for tourists, along which visitors can, for example, watch the craftspeople at work or even try their hand at a stitch or two themselves.

"The added value of the Yi embroidery industry increased from 21 million yuan ($2.94 million) in 2012 to 275 million yuan ($38.51 million) this year, bringing 57,000 female embroidery workers a per-capita income increase of 3,570 yuan ($526)," Zhang introduced.

"Our next step is to secure job positions for 100,000 female embroidery workers and achieve 1 billion yuan ($140 million) in the Yi embroidery industry's added value by 2025. We also plan to take Yi embroidery to some of the world's major fashion weeks--New York, Shanghai, Paris and Milan," Zhang concluded.

Copyedited by Elsbeth van Paridon

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