Exploration on the Training Mode of Fashion Design Education Talents in the Context of Cultural Heritage ()
1. Introduction
Inheriting and carrying forward China’s excellent traditional culture is an important means to enhance the country’s soft power and shape the country’s cultural image. Clothing design, as an art form based on the innovation and development of modern science and technology, is an important carrier of Chinese traditional culture and plays a vital role in shaping the national image and national image. Based on the innovative development of traditional culture, the purpose of this research is to explore and practice the training mode of textile and garment education talents. On the basis of the traditional teaching mode of costume design, combined with the requirements of the times of “inheriting and carrying forward Chinese excellent traditional culture”, “Chinese cultural inheritance project, protecting and developing and revitalizing traditional crafts”, we should strengthen the cultivation of students’ scientific research and innovative ability of traditional culture, activate Chinese excellent traditional cultural resources, and make them gain a new growth point in the field of costume design through the combination of theory and practice in teaching, thus making the costume design education in colleges and universities in China develop innovatively in the process of cultural heritage.
2. Talent Training Mode under the Concept of Context Inheritance
2.1. What Is the Cultural Heritage?
At present, the biggest challenge that traditional culture faces is how to be accepted by people in the modern social context. The meaning of “cultural heritage” here is to explore, study and continue excellent traditional cultural elements, to find the connection between tradition and the present, stand at the forefront of the times, and rebuild the connection point between tradition and this era with an artistic technique belonging to contemporary China.
Take the interpretation of cheongsam, a clothing element of China, by different clothing brands in different periods as an example. In 1977, Yves Saint laurent’s China style put together traditional elements such as cheongsam and mandarin jacket straightforwardly, and now it looks old-fashioned; In 1997, John Galliano used cheongsam style as the carrier, mixing and deconstructing the eastern and western dress elements, which is a common design technique at present; In 2017, Issey Miyake used distinctive pleated fabrics to make the traditional cheongsam look like a new era; In 2019, Iris Van Herpen’s cheongsam design showed a subversive effect through new materials and technologies such as 3D printing. The works of these different periods are masterpieces representing the highest level of design in their respective times, and the inspiration element of “cheongsam” used in them has not changed. However, nowadays, the appearances of these works are quite different. Why is it (Figure 1)?
In fact, the historical tradition has not changed, but people’s aesthetics and cognition have changed. Through the comparison of these designs, it can be seen that only when the design concept keeps pace with the times, shows the aesthetics of the times, and is embodied by contemporary technical means, can the traditional culture continuously show new vitality and influence, which is the
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Figure 1. The interpretation of cheongsam, an element of China clothing, by different clothing brands in different periods.
so-called cultural heritage.
2.2. The Purpose and Significance of Cultural Heritage
Since the reform and opening-up, China’s fashion design education has developed for a short time, and it is not fully developed. Imitating and learning from overseas leading countries in fashion design education, one-sided emphasis on modernity, neglect of the excavation and inheritance of historical context and traditional culture, therefore, it presents superficial and homogeneous phenomena, and lacks its own design style.
The talent training mode based on the concept of context inheritance is to critically inherit, transform and innovate through new design concepts and technical means, to conduct in-depth research and application transformation of traditional culture, and to promote the “modern activation” of China’s traditional costume culture. It emphasizes “forward-looking science and technology”, “future construction” and “interdisciplinary artistic integration”, carries forward the cultural spirit of China with a world vision and a higher pattern, digs up the charm of inheriting the traditional costume culture, and strives to express our knowledge and understanding of the traditional Chinese culture in design and practice, taking the China culture as the background, taking costume design as the expression vocabulary, and inheriting our cultural DNA.
The establishment of the talent training mode of textile and garment education under the guidance of the concept of context inheritance, is based on inheriting and revitalizing the traditional garment culture, protecting and developing the traditional garment technology, establishing a diversified and interdisciplinary teaching mode, breaking the boundaries of disciplines, broadening the horizons, and enhancing the comprehensive ability of cross-border cooperation, thus forming a contemporary forward-looking design style with oriental aesthetic connotations, and integrating China traditional culture with contemporary international aesthetics to form a practical strategy and theoretical system of innovative garment design teaching with contemporary China characteristics.
Based on the innovative development of traditional culture, this research is divided into three parts: firstly, combing the relationship between tradition and fashion in fashion design; then it analyzes the development trend of future clothing design under the influence of scientific and technological means; Finally, the design logic under the concept of context inheritance is discussed. In the following, it will be divided into three sections.
3. Tradition and Fashion in Costume Design
3.1. Traditional Accumulation
The inheritance of context is inseparable from the accumulation of tradition. Inheriting tradition is by no means a direct copy of tradition, but it needs to be transformed through design ability (Liu, 2015).
What is tradition? First of all, tradition is the accumulation of history and culture. In the design, we should understand, respect and awe the details of history and culture, and be able to reproduce our excellent traditional culture with a sophisticated craftsman spirit. For example, the contemporary interpretation of cheongsam, including its historical culture, outline structure, detailed craftsmanship and so on, itself has certain cultural value, which requires designers to have the ability to deeply study and reproduce the costume culture in history. Of course, pure tradition can’t fit in with this era. Excellent design must stand at the forefront of the times and rebuild the connection point between tradition and this era with a contemporary technique of China. At this time, what needs to be inherited in the design is more the deep-seated cultural spirit, and this expression of cultural implication is often more direct to people’s hearts than the superficial and limited imitation restoration.
Many times, when students begin to contact Chinese style design, they will feel that traditional things are rustic and it is difficult to design and transform them. The big reason is that most of the traditional elements that can be contacted in daily life are superficial and simplified. For example, the tiger-headed hat, a common style in the folk tourism market, is really rustic. However, through a careful and in-depth study of the history of clothing, we will find that the tiger-headed hat in history has rich shapes and delicate forms of expression. So, when designing, ask yourself, do we really know our tradition? Sometimes I don’t know how to design. Is it because of the lack of cultural accumulation and material accumulation?
For example, Alexander McQueen’s 2006 work was inspired by the Gothic women’s headdress, and the makeup hair style of Givenchy’s 2015 show was very similar to the pearl makeup of Song Dynasty in China (Figure 2). Thus, the accumulation of history and culture is an important basic condition for fashion transformation. If the design can be properly transformed by combining the current aesthetics, the traditional cultural elements will be the inexhaustible
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Figure 2. Women’s headdress in Gothic period/Alexander McQueen’s works/Givenchy’s works/Pearl makeup in Song Dynasty of China.
source of inspiration for our fashion design. Design is a bridge between tradition and the present, which can make traditional culture show new fashion vitality, deeply understand the history of clothing development, and master richer design materials. It is one of the important contents of clothing design teaching.
3.2. Fashion Transformation
Chanel has a famous saying: “Fashion changes rapidly, but style lasts forever.” What is changing rapidly is the aesthetic appeal of people in different times, and the eternal style is the cultural connotation of a nation. Firstly, it analyzes the influence of the changes of the times on aesthetic appeal.
Social and historical events can influence the development direction of fashion, and many such events have been seen in the history of fashion. For example, the feminist movement in the United States made women takes off corsets, put on short skirts, and then put on trousers, which greatly influenced and changed the appearance of western women’s wear. As fashion historian Amanda Haley said, “Fashion is a response, not an island.” Therefore, when we look at the changes of fashion, we can’t simply discuss the changes of people’s aesthetics at that time, and ignore the social reasons that essentially affect the aesthetic appeal (Entwistle, 2005).
Let’s look at the cheongsam of our country. The changing history of cheongsam can be said to be a history of women’s independence and self-improvement. From the early days, in pursuit of equality between men and women, women began to wear loose men’s gown, to the slender mopping cheongsam, to the pointed-breasted cheongsam that highlights women’s curves, and then to the wide-shouldered cheongsam with wide shoulder pads. These changes in fashion details show the features of the times in different social environments (Yuan, 2010).
Therefore, if you want to make works that meet the current aesthetic demands, you need to have a better understanding of this era. On the basis of being familiar with the history of clothing, we should capture the current popular phenomena and think about the law of fashion cycle, so that we can make forward-looking design.
4. Development Trend of Science and Technology and Fashion Design
Fashion changes are closely related to the development of science and technology. For example, America’s moon landing program prompted the fashion industry in 1960s to produce futuristic fashion style. Nowadays, it is more and more necessary to bring new vitality to fashion by multi-disciplinary creative techniques. Science and technology have brought innovation to art, and art has also provided new imagination for science and technology. In fact, the era of “science and technology art” we are in is very similar to the Renaissance, which is both an opportunity and a challenge. The opportunity is that the innovation of technology has brought about a revolution in design form, and the challenge is that designers should be better at cross-border cooperation.
The future development trend of design is to promote the integration of artistic ideas with science, technology, engineering, mathematics and other fields. The innovation of modeling dimension based on new technology and new materials, intelligent interactive wearable devices, and breaking the boundary between virtual and real design will become the important development direction of future fashion design (Fukuyama, 2017).
4.1. New Modeling Dimension
The diversification of 3D printing technology and materials has broken the traditional modeling methods and forms. This innovation of modeling methods from cutting and sewing to one-piece molding also requires today’s fashion designers to master or understand some new technical media, such as 3D modeling, 3D scanning, etc., which requires designers and technicians to communicate more effectively and give full play to the advantages of each technology.
Take a 3D printed clothing series recently completed by the author as an example. In this design, the traditional layout has become the structural design, in which a large part of the work is to design the three-dimensional interspersed structure of clothing modeling, instead of the layout in the plane dimension. The transparent structure and three-dimensional tension brought by this new material and modeling method are quite different from the traditional cloth, which brings more possibilities for design (Figure 3).
4.2. Intelligent Interaction
Another development direction of clothing design is intelligent interaction, which focuses on smart wearable devices. Smart wearable is an extension of body perception. It connects the body with data through clothing equipment, and monitors the body’s biological signs through physical parameters, so as to innovate
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Figure 3. Three-dimensional structure design of clothing modeling (Author: Bi Ran).
fashion, express emotions, or embody a healthy lifestyle, and realize mixed reality and multi-dimensional interaction. Through new media, smart wearable devices enable people to analyze biological data through induction circuits and program algorithms, and even learn more about the body and self through brain-computer connection. Future fashion design may show a trend of “body data”.
This piece of intelligent interactive wearable device is the graduation design of Jiang Jiaqi, a graduate student majoring in information art design in Tsinghua Academy of Fine Arts. The device worn by musicians on their arms can emit light spots that follow the rhythm according to the changes of gestures when playing the flute. The author designed a costume for her that can be integrated with the device, which enriched the audio-visual effect of the performance (Figure 4).
4.3. Break the Boundary between Virtual and Real
The application of science and technology in fashion design can break the boundary between virtual and real. In recent years, virtual clothing has gradually emerged and occupied a place in the fashion industry. Virtual clothing is not only a simulated reality, but also an augmented reality. This technology can be used in the field of clothing to display and spread, and to explore new commercial sales models (Gaine, 2016). Through virtual clothing, motion capture and other technical means, in the virtual context, the expressive force of clothing is greatly enhanced, showing different conventional visual effects. The picture below is a new media art work that the author is doing to capture virtual clothing. It shows the artistic conception of traditional China ink painting in the form of digital art, and gives the traditional culture a new audio-visual feeling (Figure 5).
The development potential of virtual clothing is unlimited. In the game industry, almost every game has its own clothing mall, and the design of virtual
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Figure 4. Design of intelligent interactive wearable device (Author: Jiang Jiaqi, Bi Ran).
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Figure 5. Motion capture virtual costume new media art works (Author: Bi Ran).
skin props is a promising direction. In the film industry, motion capture has become a particularly important special effects technology in sci-fi fantasy movies. Virtual costumes break the restrictions brought by traditional props and make-up and can give full play to the imagination. In the field of fashion, virtual fashion bloggers and virtual show performances have appeared, and virtual clothing will reflect more value and significance in fashion communication.
At present, China’s virtual costume making technology is relatively mature, and there are plenty of practical cases, while the research on design theory is relatively lacking. With the global popularization of virtual fashion, how to create China characteristics has become the focus of current design research.
5. Design Logic under the Concept of Context Inheritance
Fashion ideas and historical traditions can correspond to each other and come down in the same vein. It is precisely because of such a corresponding logical relationship that fashion design can be widely recognized by the society while being bold and innovative. Many excellent costume designs, while showing modern fashion, can make the human body realize the cultural heritage, and this feeling comes from the amid rigorous design logic.
For example, in the classic design of Hussein Chalayan in the picture, the skirt of this dress spreads out through some mechanical devices during the show performance, resulting in a shocking visual effect (Figure 6). Why did Chalayan design the unfolded part at the back of the skirt instead of the front skirt or the back? Because the shape of skirt has a long tradition in the history of western clothing, Chalayan has used forward-looking design concepts and technical techniques, but his modeling concepts can always correspond to the fashion aesthetics that have been popular for thousands of years in the history of western clothing. Thus, the relationship between avant-garde technology and tradition is not only a simple sense of form, but a logical relationship that resonates with the
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Figure 6. Hussein Chalayan’s works/traditional European skirt.
viewer. Comparing Chalayan’s works with traditional European skirts, we can clearly see the relationship between these avant-garde modeling techniques and traditional culture. Fashion ideas and historical traditions can correspond to each other and come down in the same vein. It is precisely because of such a corresponding logical relationship that fashion design can be widely recognized by the society while being bold and innovative. According to the design logic under the concept of cultural heritage, the author has completed a series of contemporary fashion art design works with China characteristics.
The author participated in the “Mojia” Robot Band project in future lab, Tsinghua University, responsible for the modeling design of robot musicians, and used parametric modeling, 3D printing and other technologies in robot clothing and hairstyles design, digging the charm of inheriting traditional culture, and showing the beauty of oriental vision with the integration of technology and culture. The author uses the typical traditional costume elements of China Tang Dynasty women’s bun style, high waist Confucian skirt and so on as inspiration (Shen, 1997), and expresses them in the design with contemporary technical techniques and aesthetic ideas. This cross-border innovation combining tradition, art and science and technology endows the traditional culture with a subversive appearance of the times, and gains a good communication effect (Figure 7).
6. Conclusion
Back to Chanel’s famous saying: Fashion is changing rapidly, but the style is eternal. The eternal style is actually the cultural core of a nation, and this endless cultural core is the cultural heritage defined in this article. The design that reflects the inheritance of context has obvious charm of China, and their language is international and open. This exploration and practice of the talent training mode of textile and garment education based on the innovative development of traditional culture under the concept of context inheritance emphasizes the integration of traditional cultural element design with international vision, guides students to establish a complete thinking process from research to innovation, and master the thinking and methods of garment design under the context inheritance
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Figure 7. Modeling design of “Mojia” robot band.
theory. In teaching, we should establish a diversified and interdisciplinary teaching mode, break the boundaries of disciplines, broaden students’ horizons, enhance students’ comprehensive ability of cross-border cooperation, and guide students to show traditional aesthetics by using modern multi-disciplinary cross-border integration design methods, so as to integrate China’s traditional culture with contemporary international aesthetics, thus forming a contemporary forward-looking design style with China’s cultural heritage.
Under the guidance of the postmodern theory of “context inheritance”, this training mode of fashion design education starts from several aspects: first, changing the traditional classroom teaching mode, leading by inspiration and guidance, introducing the teaching concept of “context inheritance” to improve students’ interest in traditional culture, and then improving students’ ability of basic theoretical research and design transformation and innovation; second, build a professional project practice platform, pay attention to thinking training, and combine field investigation and design practice to improve students’ design research transformation ability; Third, establish a diversified and interdisciplinary teaching mode, break the boundaries of disciplines, broaden students’ horizons, and enhance students’ comprehensive ability of cross-border cooperation; Fourthly, the concept of “future sustainability” should be introduced into the concept of innovative fashion design, the design practice should be guided by research, and it should be integrated into the fashion design education of “context inheritance”, emphasizing the forward-looking nature of science and technology, future construction and interdisciplinary artistic integration, so as to promote the innovation of the content and form of local fashion design education, and promote the context inheritance and the construction of the theoretical system of innovative fashion design. Fifth, guide students to take China’s big culture as the background, take contemporary aesthetics with a global pattern as the expression vocabulary, and inherit our cultural DNA.
Inheriting and carrying forward excellent traditional culture is an important means to enhance the country’s soft power and shape the country’s cultural image (Project Team of National Image Design in International Communication, 2012). Clothing is an important carrier of traditional culture and plays a vital role in shaping the national image and national image (Barthes, 2000). As a fashion designer, we should have a sense of responsibility, carry forward the excellent cultural spirit of the Chinese nation with a world vision and a higher pattern, enhance China’s cultural soft power, and show the charming charm of China culture on the world stage.