Designer helps to preserve the textile-making tradition of China's ethnic minorities
Angel Chang wants to ensuring the younger generation is rewarded for their artisanal work
Touring the Shanghai Museum five years ago, Chinese-American designer Angel Chang was immediately struck by displays of the intricately woven textiles of the Dong and Miao ethnic minorities.
This was the couture of cloth: fine, handwoven damask and cotton fabrics covered in hypnotic, repetitive hand-stitched patterns that represented aspects of nature.
Chang traced the textiles to Guizhou and began making regular visits to provincial villages to meet the women who produced them. They did it all - grew the cotton, spun the fibre and wove thread into cloth on handlooms, before dyeing the material and stitching it into heirloom clothing.
"The women would take months or years to finish the clothes and pass them down to their children to wear," Chang says, speaking from Shanghai en route to Guizhou.
Yet the material can be repurposed and given new life; for example, a baby carrier made using the Miao's distinctive blue and white geometrical weave can be taken apart as the child grows older, and turned into a jacket for the toddler.
What she saw inspired her to create a funky capsule collection using ethnic fabrics that was shown last year to buyers in Paris, Madrid and New York.
The ethnic influence was a shift in direction for Paris-based Chang, who previously won accolades for combining technology and high fashion (a self-heating vest, for example).