Talent Talks: Liwen Liang

Liwen Liang grew up in Jingdezhen, the world-famous capital of porcelain ceramics.  They come from a long line of ceramic practitioners, and wanted to bring this process to fashion. Combing their rich cultural heritage and personal knowledge through innovating an ultra-fine ceramic-textile, Liwen pays homage to intergenerational relationships rooted in place, sharing knowledge and the future of ceramics. 

Could you please introduce yourself? 

I am a ceramic worker and fashion designer. I was born in a small city called Jingdezhen, but it’s the world-famous porcelain capital with a ceramic history of thousands of years. My family and friends are all ceramic workers. My grandfather was a ceramic kiln worker at the National Porcelain Factory in the 1950s, and his descendants are also engaged in the ceramic business.

Having graduated recently, how do you look back on your studies? 

I finished master of womenswear design from the London College of Fashion in 2023,, I have been thinking about how to express my understanding of the culture of my hometown from an international perspective.

Could you please tell us something about your graduation collection/project?

The collection was inspired from where I grew up. I grew up in my family ceramic workshop, and my creative style comes from the environment in which I grew up. The muddy working environment, the smell of the mud, the broken ceramic fragments, and the way the ceramic workers dress are all the sources of my inspiration. I realized there is no aesthetic in fashion that presents our ceramic craftsman. I want to bring the aesthetics of our community into fashion.

Which materials, techniques, programmes and/or applications are you mostly interested in? 

My works respect the spirit of craftsmanship. Ceramic fabrics are my unique feature. During the Covid,I studied the traditional thin shell porcelain technique and conducted creative experiments for 2 years. Finally, I invented a new product based on this traditional technique,

I fired the ceramics into about 0.3 mm sheets and combined them on the fabric. After the smashing the fabric, the crushed fabric had good flexibility. The weight of a ceramic long dress was about 2kg and about the weight of a leather coat. 

At present, all the ceramic fabrics are made by me and my family. We have spent three years repeatedly studying the proportion of clay and glue, as well as the fire temperature control of various glaze colors. Each print has to go through at least three times of printing color debugging and firing. Countless firing, waiting, surprise and disappointment have become ingenuity retained in my clothes.

The exhibition you are a part of looks into meaning of regeneration. What does regeneration mean to you and your work? 

I developed the ancient local handicraft of thin shell porcelain technology, and combined it with the garment fabric process to create a unique ceramic fabric that can be worn.

Jeans is one of the most commonly worn items by ceramic workers, and my design also recycled a lot of jeans and other clothing from charity stores or industrial wastes. I was inspired by the fragments ceramics from ceramic studio and deconstructed denim and re-design. And I up-cycled wasted industrial ceramic print, refiring, with deconstruction aesthetics to reinterpret the traditional ceramic printing.

How do you perceive the meaning and importance of community within the fashion field?

My work reflects the local traditional ceramic culture, showing the inclusiveness of fashion-the traditional ceramic workers and ceramic culture can also become very fashionable.

I want people to pay attention to the ceramic workers by wearing my ceramic products understand our living environment and ceramic culture, and understand our craftsman spirit.

How do you view the future of fashion? And your own role therein? 

The future of fashion won't be only defined in garments, it could be with any forms, like sculpture, performance, arts, and interior design. I would see myself more like a sculptural crafts artist, and I would like to explore more fields where could present my ceramic arts.