For fashion inspiration and education, I traveled to China to learn about the country's fashions, textile and garment supply chains from manufacturing to marketing, and Chinese culture. This Cornell Study Trip was led by a professor of Fiber Science & Apparel Design (FSAD) who selected me following my application, along with a group of fellow FSAD students. Sponsors of the trip included the Cornell Institute of Fashion and Fiber Innovation (CIFFI) along with a Cornell-related family with a linen business in China, who planned and chaperoned the trip.
      We visited textile mills, garment factories, markets, museums, and universities in Shanghai, Jiaxing, Zheijiang,and neighboring cities, including Suzhou for traditional embroidery workshops.
       Prior to going, we spent the spring semester at Cornell studying the Chinese fashion industry, including writing and presenting research reports. Upon return to Cornell, we presented our findings to faculty. 

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The National Chinese Silk Museum was established in 1992 to feature the history and culture surrounding Chinese silk.  With a multitude of silk artifacts, the museum showcases pieces as old as 5,000 years.

On the left is a Chinese Fabric Market with rows and rows of fabric and trims from hundreds of suppliers.  On the right is Keqiao “China Textile City” Textile Trade Center where we learned about the development and evolution of the textile city over the years. 

We watched different fiber creation, textile weaving, and finishing processes. On the left is the silk spinning production process.  In the middle is a photo taken from a linen factory where we got to see all the steps required to produce a textile from the dyeing and finishing workshops to the weaving workshop and even the yarn and fabric show rooms.   On the right is a woman weaving a picture of a dog on a hand loom.   
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Besides woven fabrics, we studied knit garment production from cut and sew knitting to whole knit garments.  It was interesting to learn more about the digitally printed process compared to rotary and flat printing.

It's hard to believe but both of the above pieces of art (at the left and at the center) are composed entirely of embroidery from the Embroidery Museum by Wang Li Hua. How amazing!  

Above are photos from the cultural tour in the Wuzhen Water Town which is often known as the "Venice of the East."
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As a requirement to go on the China Study trip, the semester prior we all took an Independent Study class on the fashion marketing and retail system, fashion design, and textiles in China.  We learned a lot about the history of qipaos from the styles to the cultural meaning and how they have influenced Western culture -- while Western culture has influenced their styles -- so it was only fitting that we got to try on qipaos while in China.  

At the last stop on our trip we visited Shanghai, which amazed me with its world’s second tallest building and the exotic Oriental Pearl TV Tower constructed with 11 spheres (“pearls”).