Master of Science / Department of Apparel, Textiles, and Interior Design / Sherry J. Haar / This study was based on the concept of slow design, proposed after the slow food movement. The idea of slowing down production processes and increasing product quality and value suggests an antidote to the fast cycle of the fashion industry. Slow design supports two principals, inheriting tradition and maintaining eco-efficiency, which guided this project. Inheriting tradition is an expression that explores ways to sustain lost art and traditional heritage in our daily lives, as well as develop products that establish personal meaning for the consumer. Maintaining eco-efficiency of product production involves utilization of eco-friendly materials and sustainable approaches to aid in developing a healthier and cleaner ecosystem. The overall goal of this design research was to celebrate and sustain the spiritual and material civilization of the Chinese culture by creating a modern artistic interpretation of Chinese traditional arts using an environmentally conscious approach that was applicable to apparel design. This research created modern surface design on a group of garments from traditional Chinese Su Xiu embroidery, physical resist techniques, and natural dyes. This practice-based research utilized the paradigm of naturalistic inquiry to guide the stages of this project. A progressive design process was adopted in response to the unexpected events in the final artifact development. In the design exploration stage, a color library was created to provide the color story for the final artifacts. Basic Su Xiu embroidery stitches and traditional physical resist techniques were sampled with selected flosses and fabrics. Various samples were critiqued and analyzed to develop three unique techniques from characteristics of traditional Chinese Su Xiu embroidery, physical resist techniques (Zha Jiao, Feng Jiao, pole- wrapping, and Jia Xie), using natural dyeing techniques with woad and madder. Natural dye findings included using madder to overdye woad to adjust or reverse colors and that woad overpowered the effects of iron and acid premordants. The outcome resulted in a water-inspired series of three garments that showed evidence of simplified traditional techniques with reduced production time, energy, and dyeing material while encompassing elements of traditional art using a modern aesthetic. The designs and process were presented in a public exposition.

Contrary to Westerners' long-maintained denial of fashion in Chinese dress, recent scholarship has provided convincing textual evidence of fashion in early modern China. Research into this fashion commentary has complicated our understanding of Chinese consumption history, yet we still know little about fashion design, production, or dissemination. By prioritising the textual over the visual or material, this history remains confined to the written source, rather than asking what objects might tell us of Qing fashions. Though many fashionable styles of dress survive in Western museums, these are rarely considered evidence of the Chinese fashion system. Instead museum scholarship remains influenced by twentieth-century interpretations of Chinese dress as art; dominated by dragon robes and auspicious symbols, oriented around the trope of the genteel Chinese seamstress. Within this art historical account, nineteenth-century women's dress has been characterized by decay and viewed with disdain. This thesis questions these assumptions through the study of a group of late Qing women's jackets featuring embroidered narrative scenes, arguing that in this style - regulated by market desires rather than imperial edict - fashion formed at the intersection of commerce and culture. Contrary to the prevailing production model in which the secluded gentlewoman embroidered her entire wardrobe, I position the jackets within the mid-Qing commercialization of handicrafts that created networks of urban guilds, commercial workshops and sub-contracted female workers. By drawing the contours of Suzhou's commercial networks - a region renowned for its embroidery - I demonstrate how popular culture permeated the late Qing fashion system, and explicate the appearance and conceptualization of the embroidered scenes through contemporary prints and performance. My exploration of how dramatic narrative was represented in female dress culture highlights embroidery's significance as a tool to reflect upon contemporary culture, a finding I support by recourse to representations of embroidery as act and object in Suzhou's vernacular ballads and dramas. Thus, these little-studied jackets not only evidence how fashionable dress articulated women's relationship with popular culture, but also how embroidery expressed contemporary concerns, allowing a re-appraisal of women's role as cultural consumers and producers.