Jiang Laoben and her exquisite craftsmanship of Miao's 'hundred-bird dress'

Jiang Laoben is creating a "hundred-bird dress" with her students. [Photo by Chen Peiliang/Asianewsphoto]

A "hundred-bird dress" is made of Miao handwoven cloth, pieced together with brocade silk in different colors, including red, yellow, green and blue. Rich mixtures of exquisite patterns, such as flowers, birds, insects, fish, butterfly and sun and other natural creatures, are sewn around the chest pocket and corset.. The hem of the skirt is made of embroidery and batik, with a circle of bird features decorating the bottom edge.

The dress, with its diversified colors and unique patterns, is highly valued by the Miao ethnicity and has earned the reputation of "the epic of Miao worn on the body".

The production of such an outfit is labor-intensive and time-consuming. One dress will strain all the spare time of a skilled craftswoman for more than six months or even a year. Therefore, very few people in the past worked on making the dresses and they were sold overseas at high prices.