Blue Nankeen Exhibition Hall

Of all the world’s traditional handicrafts, I’m most fascinated by the fiber arts. There’s something special about the textiles which make up our human history all over the planet. It’s not something we give much thought to when we go to the mall to buy a new pair of jeans, but creating the fabric for clothing and other uses took up a big part of the lives of artisans in every culture throughout the world. Modern advances in construction techniques mean we’re losing part of our history as the artisans who spent their lives creating textiles by hand retire without passing on their craft to a new generation.

In a sidebar of a tourist brochure in China, I read a tiny paragraph about a place called the Nankeen Exhibition Hall in Shanghai. It mentioned I could see a type of fabric called Blue Nankeen on display. I had to go explore and find out more!

Blue Nankeen is traditional art form tracing back over 3,000 years to the Silk Road in China. Sadly, it has lost popularity with modern Chinese people, and it appears to be somewhat of a dying art.

Finding the Blue Nankeen Exhibition Hall in the Former French Concession wasn’t easy the first time. I went via taxi, and the driver drove in circles before abruptly stopping and forcing us to get out. We were about half a block away from the sign in the photo above, which leads you into a warren of alleys filled with tiny homes.

There were helpful blue signs everywhere, which guided our quest. We had to admire the fat green grapes growing from the overhead power lines, a common sight in these old neighborhoods.

We knew we’d found it when we saw the telltale blue and white fabric billowing in the breeze. I was immediately drawn to the large panel in the back. I was told it could be mine for 950 RMB (~$160 USD). I decided to go in and see what other treasure awaited inside.

I read how the Blue Nankeen Gallery was a mix between a museum and a shop, and I’d lean more toward shop with a ground floor wholly devoted to fabric and products made from fabric available for purchase. Going up a flight of stairs, I found a display of how the fabric was made, giving me a deeper understanding and appreciation of how the unique patterns were made.

The first step in creating Blue Nankeen fabric was to carve a pattern into a sturdy wooden block. Many families had their own patterns, which only they created and were known for. The wooden blocks were their treasure, passed down through the years. A more wealthy family might own several different patterns.

The next step was creating a stencil of the pattern by placing very thick paper over the wooden block and cutting away the background of the pattern. The paper could be used a few times before it needed to be discarded.

The paper stencil was placed atop white or cream pure cotton fabric. A thick paste of soybeans and lime was mixed up and worked into to the fabric with a metal spatula over the stencil, much like screen printing. The paste would dry, protecting the part it covered from dye. The fabric was then dipped repeatedly into indigo dye until the desired intensity appeared.

Once the dye dried, the soy bean and lime paste was scraped off with a blade and the fabric was washed and hung out to dry, revealing the still-white pattern beneath. You may have seen Batik fabric from India, Africa, or Southeast Asian countries, often also in an indigo and white pattern. It is made with a similar process, only using wax to create the pattern instead of the soybean and lime paste.

The fabric below has been created using the wooden blocks seen above.

In the shop on the ground floor, they sell fabric by the meter in a width of 37 centimeters, starting at 69 RMB (~$11.50 USD) per meter. It was a very difficult choice when every pattern is beautiful and complements the other patterns you see! The fabric is heavy, mostly with a similar weight of a light denim.

Many of the patterns feature traditional lucky Chinese motifs, such as fish or flowers. The small imperfections of the printing proved it was made by human hand and not a machine, and the rich beauty of this art form filled me with such joy.

In addition to fabric, they also sell purses and clothing and small animals made from the Blue Nankeen textiles. I bought a few small items as gifts, and chose two pieces for myself.

The first was this door covering, made from two mirrored panels. In our tiny Asian home, storage is at a premium, so I use this to cover the shelves on a bookcase which contain our small pharmacy of imported medicines and first aid supplies.

I also got a few meters of this lighter weight fabric to create a skirt. Because the panels are so narrow, I’m looking for a pattern featuring multiple gores to show off the fabric to it’s best effect.

If you’re visiting Shanghai, I highly recommend a stop here. Give yourself at least an hour, and be sure to go up to the second floor to see the tools used to create these works of art.

Fair warning, unlike most of the rest of Shanghai, there is no bargaining here. I wouldn’t say the prices are cheap, but in a city filled with cheap knockoffs and junk, I’m more than willing to spend my money on something with a rich history made the slow way by hand.