Tongxiang Blue Printed Cloth

Tongxiang Blue Printed Cloth

Tongxiang Blue Printed Cloth is an intangible cultural heritage of Zhejiang Province.

　　Product Name: Tongxiang Blue Printed Cloth

　　Place of Origin: Tongxiang, Jiaxing City, Zhejiang Province

　　Product Features: Simple and elegant, with fresh and bright tones, and rustic yet refined patterns.

　　Product Introduction: Blue printed cloth is an ancient hand-printed fabric that was once widely popular among the folk in the Jiangnan region. Its unpretentious and graceful cultural charm stands out uniquely in China’s folk art and, even after a thousand years, continues to exude the enchanting fragrance of Eastern culture. The blue printed cloth is made by extracting indigo from the polygonum plant as the dye, combining lime and bean powder to create a blue paste, and then applying it through multiple dyeing processes including all-cotton material, handmade weaving, block carving, and paste scraping. With alternating blue and white—where the blue is richly deep and the white is purely clean—the patterns have neat and uniform outlines, with simple yet striking lines and auspicious, festive motifs, making it a favorite among common people for nearly three hundred years.

　　Product History: Blue printed cloth originated in the Qin and Han dynasties, flourished during the commercially vibrant Song Dynasty, and became widely popular around the Ming and Qing periods when capitalism began to emerge. Most of the blue printed cloth designs seen today date back to the Ming and Qing dynasties. Everyday items made from blue printed cloth—such as mosquito nets, quilt covers, wrapping cloths, headscarves, and door curtains—were simple and elegant, with fresh and bright tones, rustic yet refined patterns, and were immensely popular. As a result, the dyeing trade once became a prominent local industry. Historical records note that during the Song and Yuan periods, Tongxiang’s blue printed cloth industry thrived remarkably, presenting a spectacular scene with looms everywhere, dye workshops lining the streets, and boats full of cloth densely populating the rivers. Among them, dye workshops such as “Fengtongyu” and “Taisen” in Shimen (anciently known as Yuxi) stood out as leaders of the industry. Their creations like “Auspicious Crane Chirping,” “Three Friends of Winter,” “Plum Blossoms Bringing Five Fortunes,” and “Pomegranates Bursting with a Hundred Seeds” became long-renowned.