Culture raises Taiwan’s profile
Fu Jen is the first educational institution in Taiwan to obtain recognition from the International Foundation of Fashion Technology Institutes. Sister Maryta hopes that students will seamlessly connect with international fashion trends. She has a strong aesthetic sensibility and believes that textiles are a form of nonverbal symbolic language that expresses one’s individuality.
“All design needs a cultural background,” she says, noting that her department has cultivated countless talented designers who have gone on to earn international recognition. Justin Chou is showing at New York Fashion Week for the sixth time this year with his “Just in XX” label. Combining vibrant contemporary colors with classic cuts, his collection reinterprets the classic “square-centimeter stamp” paintings of Tsong Pu, conveying the beauty of Taiwan to the international community in an eco-friendly manner. Johan Ku has amazed audiences and consumers from Tokyo to London with his sculptural knitwear. With Apu Jan, Kao Yuan-lung and others, he highlights a sense of power amid contradictions and conflict, leading a new wave of eco-friendly clothing.
Although teaching high fashion, Sister Maryta emphasizes an environmental ethos and warns students and consumers against destroying natural resources through blind pursuit of fashion.
“We’ve adopted a vertically integrated model of education,” says Ho Zhao-hua, chair of the Department of Textiles and Clothing, who has long been Sister Maryta’s “right-hand woman.” Ho first got an undergraduate degree in Chinese at Fu Jen and then became one of the first people to obtain a postgraduate degree from the Department of Textiles and Clothing there. “To learn about textiles, students start from yarns and weaving.” Ample resources related to weaving, knitting, dyeing, printing and metalworking are available to students in the department’s programs. From textile design to clothing design and marketing, Sister Maryta hopes to cultivate personnel with expertise in every related area, enabling them to get quickly on track with their careers after graduating.
“In fact, the field of textiles offers an enormous range of career opportunities.” From 1996 to 1998, Sister Maryta worked with industry to complete designs for the textiles used in the guest rooms at the Grand Hotel Taipei, and in 2000 she won an award for outstanding research and development collaboration between industry and academia.
“We designed the textiles in the Sunshine Hall and the Green Hall of the Presidential Office Building.” In 2003, Sister Maryta was invited to design a “Land of 100 Blessings” carpet for the Green Hall around the themes of Taiwanese butterflies, windowsill orchids, lilies, Taiwan toad lilies, and Swinhoe’s pheasants. Two years later she designed the textiles for the Sunshine Hall, themed on the blue seas surrounding the island of Taiwan, a theme magnificently represented in the room’s carpet, curtains, and sofas.
The colorful clothes of the Miao people have a distinctive ethnic style.