The Fabric Market, Part Trois
I have been a very absent bloggist this month, which can be blamed partly on my faulty immune system combined with Shanghai’s post-Expo surge in atmospheric particles (record highs in smog, it seems!), and partly (mostly) on Nanowrimo, which has sucked up an average of 1667 of my creative words every day. I have been left feeling rather depleted. This shall pass, however, as my shaky little immune system seems to be getting a second wind and my lungs are slowly getting used to breathing in all sorts of disconcertingly visible/crunchy air molecules and Nano is down to its last five days.
To mark my return to the interwebs, I would like to present to you my latest instalment in my plan to be totally clad in silk by 2012 (possibly even underpants and pjs).
The photos were taken with my Mac’s photo booth in the living room around noon, so the light is a bit hazy. I apologize. This first one (which I am in fact wearing as we speak) is a lovely midnight blue with a lot of lovely delicately embroidered silver flowers.
And this one is a lovely purply red with intricately interlaced pale gold and coloured tiny flowers, trimmed with a muted white gold silk edging.
The lengths of silk were around 60rmb each for 2.2 meters of fabric, bought at the awesome silk stall #229-230 at the ShiLiuPu cloth market on Dongmen Lu where I got my last round of green, flowery silks. They are just around the corner from Shirley at #216, who does my tailoring (aka copying).
The tunics themselves cost 100 rmb each for the sewing. The fabric folk do qipaos and bags and other pretty things but I haven’t actually used their sewing services because Shirley is just so reliably awesome.
Beautiful!
Aren’t they awesome? And they look so much better than in the washed out photos! Shiny!
Jump to the future:
And here, ladies and gentlemen, we see the shrine to the now extinct silk worm. Silk worms, we believe to have been pronounced ‘seelk weermz’, were once prevalent in most countries in southern Asia until rampant consumerism wiped them out. Legend has it that only one woman, non-native to the area, was responsible. You can visit the ‘Atrocities in silk consumption’ museum for 600 kwai.
But then, you know I’m just freaking jealous.
Mwahhahaha! Not only do i fraternize with water monsters and goats but I also have a huge vendetta against silk worms. It is my 5 year plan to exhaust every last one of them.
Must go order my silk underpants and socks now…
How much should a qipqo costs? Is there a difference in rmb if it is long or short? I’d like to have one made for me in the beautiful silks you show here, but I don’t want to over pay….? Thanks!
I don’t actually know how much a proper qipao costs. Mine were copies of my old cotton Indian shalwar kameez. I bought the silk from the fabric market (about 50-70rmb for 2 meters, enough for one shalwar kameez copy) and then paid 100rmb per shalwar kameez to my tailor to copy them