Sustainable Chinese luxury, German style

Kathrin von Rechenberg's hands turn indigo after a hand-dyeing fabric. [Photo by Ruan Fan/chinadaily.com.cn]

"I first got to know the material while I was working in a Paris haute couture house. One of my classmates, a fashion designer from Taiwan, showed me a piece of such clothing, the Chinese gambiered silk. I fell in love with it at first sight."

Rechenberg said the material's texture is totally new from what she had seen in Paris – it has a papyrus-like rustle, an inimitable black metallic sheen and a look of leather, and the complicated procedures in producing this material only made it more captivating.

"The preparation process involves dyeing the silk up to 40 times in tea and other organic ingredients and covering it with mud to dry in the sun. The finished piece is comfortable to wear, and not too glamorous. And the longer you wear it, the more comfortable it becomes."

"It represents a humble elegance and helps underline the personality of the wearer, rather than hiding it," she said.

In tea silk, Rechenberg found a way to express her own philosophy in making clothes, which aims to bring out the confidence and inner beauty of the wearer, or in her words, "functional but not decorative".

"One should not see the clothes first, but the woman wearing them. She looks good when she feels comfortable and makes the clothing her own."

"Such clothes are like the little black dress that would never be outdated, and just like a fine wine, the longer, the better," Rechenberg said.