Songjiang Cotton Cloth

Songjiang Cotton Cloth

　　In the early years of the Yuan Dynasty, a woman named Huang Daopo from Wunijing in Songjiang Prefecture (now Songjiang District, Shanghai) returned to her hometown from Hainan Island. In Hainan, Huang Daopo learned a complete set of textile techniques from the Li ethnic women. Several years later, she brought the advanced cotton textile technology from Hainan back to her hometown. After returning to Songjiang, she enthusiastically taught local residents how to make textile tools, introducing new implements for each step of the process that replaced the previous manual methods. At the same time, she also instructed people on how to spin and weave, forming a more refined and significantly more efficient production process. Songjiang Prefecture quickly shed its outdated methods and mastered advanced techniques. The once coarse, monotonous, and loosely woven Songjiang cotton cloth became delicate, durable, and aesthetically pleasing. Under Huang Daopo’s dedicated guidance, Songjiang cloth gained a reputation for its fine quality, vibrant patterns, and widespread popularity as a best-selling product. The number of people engaged in the cotton textile industry surged, and the emerging cotton textile sector in Songjiang Prefecture developed rapidly, becoming an important part of the local economy. Thanks to continuous promotion and adoption, the cotton textile industry in Songjiang flourished, with increasing output and improving quality, earning the Songjiang cotton cloth a growing national reputation.

　　　　There are four particularly well-known types of Songjiang cotton cloth:

　　　　Sansuo Cloth: Produced in the Chedun area of Songjiang, this cloth has a width of over three feet and is known for being smooth and tightly woven. Near Chedun, not far from the east gate of the prefectural city, there is Shuangmiao Bridge where a woman named Ding Niangzi was exceptionally skilled at cotton fluffing—her fluffed cotton would float lightly, and when used for weaving, the resulting cloth was especially soft and fine. As a result, it was called “Flying Flower Cloth,” also known as “Ding Niangzi Cloth.”

　　　　Fan Cloth: Originating from Wunijing and taught by Huang Daopo, this cloth was of high quality and expensive, with “a single piece sometimes costing up to a hundred taels of silver.” During the Chenghua period of the Ming Dynasty, it was often used as a gift to bribe high-ranking officials and ministers close to the emperor. The fabric became increasingly exquisite, even featuring patterns such as dragons and phoenixes, fighting bulls, and qilin.

　　　　Jiansi Cloth: Made by blending linen or yellow grass fibers with cotton yarn, typically using linen as the warp and cotton as the weft. It is suitable for dyeing. The resulting cloth combines the stiffness of linen fibers with the softness of cotton yarn.

　　　　Yaoban Cloth: Also known as “Jiaohua Cloth,” it is what we today call blue-patterned printed cloth. It first appeared in the Zhonggu area of Qingpu and became popular in the urban areas of Songjiang starting from the Ming Dynasty.