The textile story behind the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics
On February 4, the 24th Winter Olympic Games, which attracted worldwide attention, grandly opened at the “Bird’s Nest” of the National Stadium in Beijing, China. With the appearance of each delegation and the wonderful performances of the actors, the textile story behind the opening ceremony became a hot topic of discussion.
Ceremonial costumes of the Chinese sports delegation
Highlighting Chinese style
Last night, the Chinese sports delegation attended the opening ceremony wearing ceremonial costumes designed by Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology The entrance ceremony showed Chinese style. As the host country, the attire of Chinese athletes in this Winter Olympics has become the focus of world attention. The theme of the ceremonial costumes of the Chinese sports delegation is “Chinese Style” and was designed by the team of Associate Professor You Jia of Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology. The “Chinese Style” design plan aims to convey the spiritual outlook of the Chinese people, combines the time, space, climate and other factors of the opening ceremony, and naturally combines with the auspicious and festive atmosphere of the Chinese Spring Festival, and is faster, higher and stronger. , echoing the more united Olympic spirit, integrating practicality and beauty, traditional culture and the Olympics complementing each other, conveying Chinese characteristics and Chinese style.
This set of appearance costumes was developed and manufactured by Dishang Group and Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology. In November 2021, Dishang Professional Workwear Group, a subsidiary of Dishang Group, sent senior craftsmen and pattern makers to form a technical research team, and designated Dalian Dishang Huasheng Garment Co., Ltd., which specializes in the production of world-class woolen coats, and The high-end factory of Dishang Technology R&D Center, which produces high-end customized products, and Dishanghua Qimao Textile Co., Ltd., which specializes in the production of high-end woolen fabrics, cooperate in R&D and production. The formal attires worn by the Chinese sports delegation for the opening ceremony were all custom-made in a single-person version. Since many athletes were training in isolation during the body measurement, the body measurer made a video of the measurement method and sent it to the athletes, asking them to measure themselves and then make adjustments according to ergonomics. Some athletes have different muscle shapes and sizes in many parts of the body due to years of training. The pattern stylist has established a body model for each athlete and conducted repeated tests before cutting to ensure that everyone can wear a fit and fit. Comfortable. The Dishang team has always shouldered a sense of honor and mission. In the details of the Winter Olympics dress, the gold-plated buttons with the word “China” are fixed with special horizontal handles to ensure that the word “China” is always correct. . Emphasizing both technology and emotion, as well as focus and prudence, the Dishang team is committed to making the national team at the opening ceremony demonstrate the great vision of a big country and the overall situation, and be upright and positive. The dress must not only be beautiful in appearance, but also take into account the need to keep out the cold at the opening ceremony. The selection and production of fabrics have become a top priority.
The Dishang team chose 800g pure cashmere as the main fabric, and added a removable white goose down ultra-light down liner on the inside of the dress to ensure the garment is crisp and comfortable. When paired with a cashmere coat, it can help The delegation withstood the severe cold of minus 20 degrees and managed to be beautiful without being “frozen”.
The Dishanghuaqi team mobilizes all the best resources and fully invests in the “Winter Olympics Production Line” specially set up for the Winter Olympics, from the initial strict control of raw material sorting, spinning, weaving, finishing, etc. Each production link, then selecting the color that best meets the design requirements from hundreds of color schemes, and finally strictly controlling quality production beyond specifications. In the quality inspection link, the national standard cloth inspection speed of 18 meters per minute is reduced to one per minute. 10 meters per minute, we strive for excellence and use requirements higher than national standards to ensure the quality of every inch of fabric, allowing the Chinese Olympic delegation to show their beautiful and elegant “Chinese color” in front of the world’s cameras.
The “Chinese Style” themed clothing design uses red as the color tone. Red is one of the highest-level colors in traditional Chinese etiquette. It is the first choice color for Chinese athletes in previous Olympic Games. It has a certain degree of representativeness, highlights the warm and festive atmosphere, demonstrates the enthusiasm and friendliness of the Chinese people, and also embodies the Chinese culture. The positive and fighting spirit of Olympic athletes. In the overall matching, the female athletes wear a red coat with white high boots, highlighting a soft, graceful, elegant and intellectual image; the male athletes wear a fashionable off-white coat with white trousers and short boots, showing a fashionable, elegant and youthful temperament. Both male and female athletes wear fashionable and warm scarves, hats and gloves. The scarves are designed to be worn freely to achieve different fashion styles of the same scarf. The main colors of the scarf are national flag red and national flag yellow, and the word “China” is woven into the three calligraphy fonts of official script, regular script and running script. The official script is simple and solemn, the regular script is square and informal, and the running script is vivid and graceful. In one stroke, the beauty of harmonious and balanced rhythm is written, conveying Chinese culture and showing the beauty of Eastern civilization.
Children’s costumes for the lead singer of “Let the Doves Fly”
Adopt Yu County paper-cutting and Chinese knot elements
155 people from the Winter Olympics theme song and dance “Let the Doves Fly” come from The children’s costumes for the lead singer of the Philharmonic Orchestra were lovingly designed by designer Ding Jie. When the children’s songs echoed melodiously over the bird’s nest, they came walking in the snow wearing blue, white, porcelain, white and blue clothes. As the finishing touch of the lead singer’s children’s clothing design, Ding Jie spent a lot of time studying, demonstrating, and practicing the colorful paper-cutting in Yu County, Hebei Province, one of the host places.Finally, Ding Jie used the tiger-head hats of ski children and the paper-cut elements of fish every year to break and reorganize the arrangement of carps leaping over the dragon gate, and cleverly integrated the fish into the cute and cute tiger pattern. Designer Ding Jie incorporated clothing patterns into auspicious elements such as the Chinese New Year “Chinese Knot”, and the imagery evolved into an ever-changing snowflake feast. When the children danced happily, those layers of deconstructed patterns were like a three-dimensional dreamlike presentation.
Special “secrecy net”
High-tech blessing, taking into account both light shielding and ventilation
In the century-old history of the Olympic Games, lighting the big torch is a classic that is still fresh in people’s memory. In an instant, this is also the top secret of any Olympic Games.
At the opening ceremony, three camouflage nets with a total area of nearly 2,800 square meters kept the suspense of the Winter Olympics flame until the last moment. The person who weaved this “confidential net” was the Hailia Group from Qingdao Ltd.
In order to retain the mystery of the torch until the last moment, the rehearsal of the lighting ceremony was carried out late at night. The Helia R&D team designed three special camouflage nets with a total area of nearly 2,800 square meters. The direction surrounds the lighting ceremony.
“For a camouflage net with such a large area, in order to be able to camouflage the shape of the torch well, the light transmittance of the camouflage net needs to be small, but it must also have sufficient air permeability, otherwise it will be so huge. The camouflage net cannot be mounted or controlled if it stands in the air. Especially when there are strong winds, the camouflage net will bulge and tear like a sail.” Zhang Lidong, deputy director of the technology center, said that for the camouflage net, ventilation and shading are themselves It’s contradictory.
“If a small mistake occurs in a small link, it may delay the progress of the rehearsal of the ignition ceremony.” Although it has participated in important national tasks many times, providing technical support for such a high-profile international event is very important to Hailiya. It’s the first time. Time is tight and there are many difficulties. The problems before the R&D team are very difficult.
For light-shielding, the R&D team started to improve the material and mesh density; for ventilation, the R&D team “weared” special ropes for aerospace for the special protective net, “this high-performance superfiber rope It is light in weight but stronger than steel cables. It also takes into account the characteristics of ‘thinness, lightness and small elongation’,” Zhang Lidong described. “We added nearly 3,000 meters to the camouflage net in both horizontal and vertical directions. The special rope is equivalent to adding a skeleton to the entire network.”
It took two months, four trips to Beijing, and nearly 10 revisions. In November last year, Haliya finally installed a “secrecy net” for the lighting ceremony that is both ventilated and light-shielding, can withstand level 10 winds, and is easy to mount and control, successfully ensuring that the shape of the torch will not be leaked during the drill. .
The costumes of the opening ceremony actors
Incorporating traditional Chinese elements
It is worth mentioning that the costumes of the opening ceremony actors at the Winter Olympics are based on the “Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains” Inspired flag-bearer sports suits, colorful luminous ice hockey uniforms, paper-cut art and cute peace dove children’s clothing, simple and clean green work overalls for the countdown, Chinese knots and passionate speed skating suits, all of which incorporate traditional elements. The costumes for the opening ceremony were all designed by Chen Peng, founder of the Chinese designer brand CHENPENG, using wonderful Chinese elements to show the world China’s current cultural confidence.
Olympic flag guard costumes
Expressing the rhythm of the country through design language
The Olympic flag guard costumes designed by Wang Fengchen were used at the Beijing Winter Olympics Officially unveiled at the opening ceremony, it expresses the rhythm of the country through contemporary design language. The overall shape gives more sportiness and functionalism on the basis of solemnity. Inspired by the Olympic spirit, we jointly pursue the goals of positivity, peace, unity and tolerance. .
Some sources of information: People’s Daily, Dazhong Newspaper, Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology, etc.
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