Tradition as Innovation: The Cultural Branding of Chou Yu-Ying and Chen Shao-Yen’s Fashion Design

The inquiry of whether fashion can be considered more socially and culturally engaged is a topic that has been gaining traction in recent scholarships. The impact of globalisation on fashion design has made it necessary for designers to approach globalism while retaining local characteristics. This paper raises pertinent questions about the challenges of upholding cultural identity in the rapidly changing digital era in Taiwan. How could fashion address emerging issues of regional concerns and beyond? Is it as important to represent Taiwanese cultural identity as it is to express creativity when designers showcase their works in international settings?

This paper explores the use of traditional art forms by contemporary artists and artisans as a design element in Taiwan’s fashion industry, with a particular emphasis on its potential to influence cultural branding and hybridity. This discussion begins with the intersection between Tong Yang-Tze's (董陽孜) calligraphy and Taiwan's new-generation fashion designers. Through this crossover, it becomes evident that fashion possesses the ability to transcend its functional purpose and emerge as a form of art in its own right. The fusion of these two creative practices has given rise to new visual stimuli. However, the adaptation of classical art form, the Chinese calligraphy that is unique in world civilisation and touches the core of Chinese elite culture in particular, also raises a question on the belonging of cultural identity against its perplexing history across the Taiwan Strait since 1949: whose identity? Whose heritage? What is exactly Taiwan’s cultural identity?

By examining their collaborative projects “From Ink to Apparel I-III” (讀衣 I-III) between 2016-2018, the paper probes how fragmented and articulated calligraphic forms can bridge the gap between cultural heritage and creativity through interdisciplinary cooperation and its interpretation and decoding process. The utilisation of appropriated classical Chinese art in fashion design exemplifies an ambitious attempt to break down barriers and create new connections between the cultural traditions of Taiwan. This study further focuses on two designers, Chen Shao-Yen (陳劭彥) and Chou Yu-Ying (周裕穎), who exercised various iconic motives from local natural produce and craft, and classical Chinese art from Taiwan’s national treasures to signify their strong intention of representing Taiwan with their new justifications. It leads us to re-evaluate the sponsorship from national institutions and its impact on branding fashion among emergent young designers. The paper also argues the incorporation of the “art in Taiwan” that is unique to specific cultural backgrounds in fashion design has the potential to appeal to a global audience through the fluidity of artistic reinterpretations.