Profile: China's embroidery prodigy weaves ethnic color into global vogue

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CHENGDU, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Since her 50s, Yang Huazhen has stitched traditional colors of China's Tibetan and Qiang ethnic groups into embroidery crafts, becoming a muse for many global fashion brands.

Yang, 63 now, forged her distinctive embroidery style -- Tibetan and Qiang Embroidery -- over a decade ago. It is a blend of Tibetan weaving, cross-stitch techniques and Qiang embroidery.

She feeds a wide range of themes into her work, including the natural scenery and production, as well as spectacles of Tibetan and Qiang life. Her handicrafts and designs have inspired Shu Uemura, Starbucks and many other international brands to introduce products bearing elements of her ethnic fashion.

CRAFT INHERITED SINCE CHILDHOOD

Born in Tsenlha County of Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Sichuan Province, Yang inherited this embroidery craft from her family.

As the only daughter of the eight children in her family, she learned techniques of weaving and stitching since seven. While she was still very young, Yang became well-known in her village. Many brides-to-be would approach Yang, requesting her to design their wedding dresses.

However, until 51, Yang had always regarded embroidery as a hobby and never thought of making a career in it. She used to be a teacher and also ran her photo studios in Tsenlha and the city of Barkam after learning photography by herself. In 1994, she became a photojournalist for a local newspaper Aba Daily.

In 2008, the magnitude-8 earthquake struck Wenchuan in Sichuan and Yang's life took a different turn since then. On May 12, when the disaster befell, Yang was on her way from Barkam to the provincial capital Chengdu on a reporting assignment.

The bus on which she was traveling halted in Yingxiu County of Wenchuan, the epicenter. Yang survived and bore witness to all that transpired -- misfortunes of the victims, people's humanitarian efforts in saving lives and the power of nationwide solidarity for Sichuan.

"I thought, what could I do for my hometown," Yang said. In order to rebuild the devastated region and help the earthquake victims, one needs to start some projects that could help them financially, she reckoned. That's when the idea of embroidery struck Yang's mind.

FROM PHOTOJOURNALIST TO ENTREPRENEUR

Three months after the disaster, Yang left her job at the newspaper to start an embroidery business. She, along with 18 other elderly women aged over 60, began the project in Chengdu from scratch. The older women were half Tibetans and half Qiang people and many of them walked out of the mountain to the city for the first time.

It was not easy for them to start a business. A few months later, they almost ran out of the initial fund worth 30,000 yuan (about 4,300 U.S. dollars), generating a meager business.

As Yang was preparing to give up, she was invited to join a local cultural and tourism project. It not only offered 170 square meters of free decoration for the shop, but the rent for the first year was also waived.

Yang's venture featuring strong ethnic elements soon rose to fame. Many enterprises offered to donate since they came from the disaster-hit area; however, Yang insisted on giving their commodities in return for the donation, hoping more people can notice their works.

"Our sales soon exceeded 1 million yuan," Yang said. "We celebrated at our shop, drank together and shook our feet to the Guozhuang (a traditional Tibetan dance)."

As her business grew, Yang continued to explore other ways to expand the influence of the products. She taught embroidery to the earthquake-affected women and bought their works for sale. A skilled embroiderer could make some 2,000 yuan by working at the company's base or home.

CAPTIVATING GLOBAL BRANDS

In 2014, Japanese makeup giant Shu Uemura approached Yang with a business proposal. The company wanted to "put on clothing with ethnic features" for two of its upcoming cleansers.

Initially, she was worried because she had never done product appearance before. She inquired in detail about the ingredients of the products and learned that one product used green tea as the main ingredient, while the other combined eight plant extracts.

She drew inspiration and agreed to show her design a week later.

"On the first day, I just went out to relax for an entire day. The next day, I sat down and drew the patterns. On the third day, I embroidered them out," Yang recalled, adding that one design took green tea flowers as the main body, implying life and growth in nature, and on the other pattern, eight types of plants were strung up by a Vajra Pestle symbolizing eternity and firmness in Tibetan Buddhism.

The company was quite satisfied with Yang's design and paid 200,000 yuan in license fees and promised to attach a sales commission.

The high return was beyond her expectation, thus she realized the intellectual property-based intangible cultural heritages could not only create higher market value but also enable themselves to reach a wider group.

Since 2015, Yang has been flying to Hong Kong to participate in the annual Hong Kong International Licensing Show, where Starbucks, French Post and several other make-up and hair care brands were attracted by Yang's embroidery works and adopted her design for their products.

During this year's show, a top luxury brand signed a contract with Yang to design a new scarf that will bear Yang's crafts based on the apsaras, a typical image on murals from Dunhuang's Mogao Grottoes in northwest China's Gansu Province. Yang said the product is expected to be launched by the end of this year.

Yang plans to take her apprentices to the villages inhabited by Tibetan, Qiang and Yi people and visit local artisans. She wants to collect and protect the crafts scattered on a remote land.

"What belongs to an ethnic group also belongs to the world," Yang said. With this belief, she is impressing everyone and seeking ethnic heritages in hidden corners by weaving their splendid colors into global fashion. Enditem

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