the extraction of song brocade's characteristic elements and the application in fashion design
TRANSCRIPT
The Extraction of Song Brocade’s Characteristic Elements and the
Application in Fashion Design
Hai-yang Tang1, a, Ying Chen1, b 1College of Clothing, Shanghai University of Engineering Science, Shanghai, 201620, China
Keywords: Song brocade; patterns; color combinations; characteristic elements; fashion design
Abstract. In order to inherit and develop the valuable heritage of Chinese traditional clothing
cultural-Song Jin, the characteristic elements, patterns and colors of Song Jin, were extracted.
Summarized that the common themes of Song Jin were geometry, flowers, animals, utensils and
meteorological theme and the Four Dayun, Six Dayun and Eight Dayun of geometry themes were the
most classical patterns among all these themes; the common color combinations were divided into
three categories. The first was the combination of harmonic colors which based on the yellow tone.
The second was the combination of harmonic colors which based on the grey or blue-grey tone and
used the reddish violet and blue as ornaments. The third often used the combination of contrasting
colors which usually chose bright red, green and orange to highlight the main prints. On this basis,
explore how to use the two characteristic elements in fashion design.
Introduction
Song brocade as one of the three most famous brocades in ancient China is a typical representative of
Chinese traditional clothing culture, but is facing with the loss of traditional skills and narrow using.
How to protect and inherit Song brocade well has become an urgent problem to solve. There are 75
pictures of Song brocade selected carefully for the extraction of Song brocade’s color and pattern
elements by using PS and CorelDraw software, so then to summarize the common use of colors, color
combinations and patterns. Explore how to use the characteristic elements extracted from Song
brocade creatively in fashion design to achieve the perfect fusion effect.
The Extraction of Son Brocade’s Characteristic Elements
The characteristic elements which can describe Song brocade well are: (1) color; (2) pattern; (3) the
weaving process. This paper focuses on using Song brocade in fashion design, besides that,
Xiaoping Qian has done in-depth study on the weaving process, so here the emphasis is put on
the patterns and colors of Song brocade, with a view to get a general understanding of Song
brocade’s artistic style, so as to lay the foundation for the application of Song brocade in fashion
design.
The Extraction of Song Brocade’s Patterns. There are 75 pictures [1,2] selected carefully in this
paper. They are divided to five categories and cut by PS software.
(1) Geometric theme: Using geometric structure to form turtleback, four-dayun, six- dayun,
eight-dayun, Tianhua design, trellis design, ball design consisted of tangent circles and Pandi design
consisted of overlapping circles. These kind of geometric patterns often use intersecting lines formed
by vertical line, horizontal line and diagonal line as skeleton with round or square at the junction of
the vertical line and diagonal line, and then fill the round, square, hexagon and octagon with prints
and little geometric patterns of various themes. Song brocade whose skeleton lines extend in eight
directions (vertical, horizontal and diagonal direction) is called eight Dayun, as the same, when its
skeleton lines extend in six directions, it is called six-dayun and Extending in four directions is four
Dayun.
Advanced Materials Research Vol. 796 (2013) pp 484-487Online available since 2013/Sep/18 at www.scientific.net© (2013) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerlanddoi:10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.796.484
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(2) Flower theme: It’s mainly about chrysanthemum, peony, rosette design, plum blossom, lotus
and orchid.
(3) Animal theme: dragon, phoenix, lion, fish, turtle, crane, bee, bat, rajgir, etc.
(4) Utensil theme: eight auspicious things(magical wheels, conch, umbrella, canopy, lotus,
Aquarius, double fish, Baijie, etc.), eight valuable things( beads, ancient coins, Fangsheng, Ruyi,
rhinoceros horn, coral, gold(silver), ten thousand books, treasure pot, lantern, etc.), eight immortals
(fan, sword, gourd, bamboo flute, jade plate, lotus, flower basket, etc.).
(5) Meteorological theme: water wave, ice lines, clouding [3,4].
As shown in Fig. 1.
The Extraction of Song Brocade’s Color
Elements. There are 75 images classified and
divided into three categories. PS software was used
for the extraction of these three kinds of colors. The
colors extracted by PS were arranged by CorelDraw
and the similar colors were put in a row. The ratio of
typical sample colors to similar colors was one to
ten, in other words, each line was extracted one
color. Finally there were three kinds of color
combinations got as the following.
Category one: It is the combinations of harmonic
colors which base on the yellow tone.
As shown in Fig. 2. The A area is a collection of
colors which are arranged by CorelDraw, and similar
colors are put in a row. The RGB value of each line
in B area is an average of the similar colors of A area
in the same line. For example, the third line (in the
red box of Fig. 2) of A area has four color blocks
whose value is R1:188, G1:172, B1:97; R2: 190, G2: 168, B2: 67; R3: 198, G3: 183, B3: 68; R4: 246,
G4: 240, B4: 154 respectively, then, the average of R: (R1+R2+ R3+R4)/4=(188+190+198+246)/4=
206, the average of G: (G1+G2+G3+G4)/4=(172+168+183+240)/4=191, the average of B:
(B1+B2+B3+B4)/4=(97+67+68+154)/4=97. The C area is a place to put some pictures whose color
combination belongs to this style.
This kind of color combination is the
inter-combination among these eight color blocks
(Notes: Not only just among
these eight color blocks, but colors that are similar
to these eight color blocks are ok).
Category two: This combination usually uses
harmonic colors which based on the grey or
blue-grey tone with the reddish violet and blue as
ornaments. The colors selected are mainly lower in color saturation. As shown in Fig. 3.
This kind of color combination is the inter-combination among these eighteen color blocks
(Notes: Not only just among these eighteen colors.)
Category three: This category often uses the combination of contrasting colors which usually
choose bright red, green and orange to highlight the main prints. Because of the ornament of bright
colors, the whole atmosphere is very lively, but the main coloring is downy. As shown in Fig. 4.
Fig. 1 All kinds of patterns of Song brocade
Fig. 2 The extraction of color elements
of category one
Advanced Materials Research Vol. 796 485
This kind of color combination is the inter-combination among these seventeen color blocks
(Note: Not only just among these eighteen colors.).
There is lots of Song brocade overspread with regular geometric patterns which is a typical feature
of Song brocade. Its shape is complicated and changeable. The composition is slim and beautiful and
the themes are comprehensive. It is common to see plenty of low lightness and saturation colors used
in Song brocade. Yellow tone accounted the majority. The combination of harmonic colors is widely
used, at the same time, it also has the combination of contrasting colors which make the harmonic
atmosphere be a little lively. On the whole, Song brocade is classic and elegant, but not showy [3].
The Application of Song Brocade in Fashion Design
With the development of the times and the spread of the trend of globalization, more and more people
come to focus on traditional culture. To use traditional elements in fashion design has become an
important way. Song brocade has a very high historical and artistic value. Due to the current narrow
using, it is hard to have a direct contact with people’s daily life, so it is difficult to walk out of the
traditional framework. In this paper, it gets the common themes and color combinations through
extracting the elements of patterns and colors from Song brocade. This will bring more possibilities
for the application of Song brocade in fashion design.
The Application of Song Brocade’s Pattern Elements in Fashion Design. First of all, we can
use original patterns of Song brocade directly. Secondly, we can change its original patterns and make
the flavor of Song brocade not be too strong and partly be concealed. Because modern life advocates
concision, we can appropriately simplify the pattern elements of Song brocade. The choice of theme
can be modern, more simply, not must be the original pattern of Song brocade.
No matter the original patterns of Song brocade or the deformation of the original patterns, when
we use these elements, we should be flexible. We can use them to overspread all over the garment, or
just choose a part as an individual to use. When it overspread all over the garment, because it already
has a strong oriental flavor, we can try simple style. The combination between them is conflicting and
harmonious. Recently, the dress that Liyuan Peng wore, when she accompanied his husband JinPing
Xi on a visit abroad is an excellent example. As the left picture shown in Fig. 5.
In Fig. 5, it uses the geometric element which is most typical in the pattern elements of Song
brocade. Octagon and square are filled with some modern patterns which are simpler than the
traditional patterns of Song brocade. The whole composition doesn’t stick to the current style of Song
brocade, but already has a little change. It just uses two colors blue and white, which accords with the
modern succinct spirit. This kind of color combination and pattern has a strong flavor of Song brocade
which is classical and elegant. It chooses a simple apparel style while the classical elements
overspread all over the garment. The combination like this seems to be invigorative, harmonious,
classical and modern, shows the temperament of the first lady Liyuan Peng well.
The Application of Song Brocade’s Color Combinations in Fashion Design. We can refer to
the three color combinations summarized above, not copy the colors of each color combination, but
understand the spirit of each color combination, and then use it flexibility. We can try to change the
lightness and saturation to get more colors to meet our own needs.
Fig. 4 The extraction of color
elements of category three
Fig. 3 The extraction of color
elements of category two
486 Silk, Protective Clothing and Eco-Textiles
There are two line drawings of effect drawing. Choose an appropriate color combination in three
combinations to color the two line drawings by PS software. As shown in Fig. 6.
In Fig.6, the left two selected the third color combination, while the right two selected the second
color combination. The A and B chose the same three color blocks (The three colors were changed
their brightness when they were taken from the third color combination.), and just had a little change
in the position and area. Only such a little change has produced a different effect, so when we use the
color elements, we should do more try. The C selected three color blocks from the second color
combination. The most interesting is the D. The color blocks of D totally copy all the colors of the
second color combination, but to our surprise, the combination among these colors has a good effect.
It means that the original color combination of Song brocade is really harmonious. Apparently, we
can see the word “elegant” from the four pictures. This is the spirit of the collocation of Song
brocade’s color elements.The dress of Liyuan Peng in the right picture of Fig. 5 just has this spirit.
Though it uses a contrasting color yellow and blue which are often used in Song brocade, the contrast
is not very strong by using them with low brightness and saturation. The whole is very harmonious.
Conclusion
This paper focused on the pattern and color elements of Song brocade, summarized the common
themes and color combinations of Song brocade. When Song brocade’s pattern elements are put to
use in fashion design, we can use it directly or after changing. The change will make the application
be more wide and flexible. When we use the pattern elements to overspread all over the garment,
maybe it is a good choice to select a pure western or simple apparel style. In the context of keeping the
whole flavors, we can choose themes flexibly which can be the original patterns of Song brocade or
the modern patterns. According to our own needs, choose appropriate color combination in using
color elements. Learn to understand the spirit of the collocation of Song brocade’s color combination
to get reasonable collocations and make the design be classical and elegant.
References
[1] C.M. Gao: Embroidery Literature: Chinese Traditional Knitted and Inwrought Patterns
(Shanghai Calligraphy and Painting Press, Shanghai 2005).
[2] N.F. Huang, J.J. Chen: 7000 Years Technological and Artistic History of China (China Textile
Press, Beijing 2002).
[3] X.P. Qian: Chinese Song Brocade (Soochow University Press, Suzhou 2011).
[4] S. Wu: A Dictionary of Chinese Clothing, Dyeing and Weaving, Embroidery (Jiangsu Art Press,
Nanjing 2011).
Fig. 5 The dress of China first lady with a
strong flavor of Song brocade
Fig.6 The effect drawing by using Song
brocade’s color combinations
Advanced Materials Research Vol. 796 487
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