- Collection type
- Object
- Description
- Short pleated festival skirt with wax resist and appliqué decoration.
- Long description
- Short pleated festival skirt with wax resist and appliqué decoration. The skirt has a waist band made from cotton textile woven in plain weave and dyed indigo approximately 85 mm wide across the top. The skirt itself is made from cotton textile that has been dyed navy blue with indigo dye. At the top of the skirt where the waistband is attached there are two plaited braids made from white cotton yarn with areas that have smudged indigo dye on them. The skirt has been pleated and decorated all over with bands of bands of squares and stripes with geometric patterns in white made by using wax resist. On the widest stripe of wax resist a line of red cotton yarn has been hand stitched above in running stitch to add colour. The centre back of the skirt has been decorated with panels of embroidery with silk yarn in red, yellow, green and white forming squares where coloured silk yarn has been embroidered in rows over the fold of the pleats. Square appliquéd panels of red cotton and silk textile have been sewn onto the centre front of the skirt for decoration, they have been appliquéd with white cotton textile and green cotton yarn.
- Geographical reference
- Date
- Date collected
- September/October 1990
- Acquisition information
- Donated: 19/01/2010
- Materials and processes
- Material Cotton Seed Fibre Textile Plant, Material Cotton Seed Fibre Yarn Plant, Material Pigment, Material Silk Textile Animal, Material Silk Yarn Animal, Process Stitched, Process Dyed, Process Embroidered, Process Woven, Process Appliqué
- Dimensions
- Width: max 1700 mm approx, Length: max 553 mm
- Object numbers
- Accession number: 2010.3.8.3 Other numbers: 12
- Research and responses
There are three different methods of skirt construction commonly used by the Miao, these are: i) anything from eight to fifty vertical lengths of loom width cloth are joined at the selvedges and pleated on to a waist band. ii) Several lengths of loom-width cloth are joined horizontally to form a tiered pleated skirt that is attached to the waistband. iii) a single horizontal length of cloth is sometimes pleated to make a short skirt. [FC 14/06/2010]
Wax resist is a method used by the Miao. Designs are applied to a fabric using a non-absorbent substance (a ‘resist’) so that they remain the original colour after the dye solution has been applied. The most common resist substance is beeswax but sometime rice paste or paraffin wax is used. It is widely used to decorate jackets, skirts and turbans and is practiced on hemp and cotton by many Miao groups. The wax is applied at a hot temperature so that the design penetrates the cloth. After the cloth has been dyed in the indigo vat the wax is washed off in hot water. The wax design appears white on a blue ground. [FC 14/06/2010]
Search terms: Clothing, Clothing Textile, Skirt, Textile