Young Uygur designer shows a passion for ethnic fashion

Evolution

Mewlan has loved designing things since he was a child. But, when his father got sick, he decided to study medicine at college. In 2016, then still a college student, Mewlan joined "I'm from Xinjiang", a project by renowned Uygur photographer Kurbanjan Samat aimed at recording and promoting Xinjiang's various cultures.

Inspired by the popular 100 Years of Beauty video series by the US storytelling company Cut.com, which highlights changes in fashion trends in a country or region over time, Mewlan and his team released their own video in 2017 to look back on trends in Uygur women's fashion over the past century.

In the two-minute video, Mewlan illustrated the evolution of Uygur fashion in his hometown from the 1910s to the 2010s.

"We can see that time has left different marks on our clothes, and different cultures have blended," Mewlan said. From his perspective, the cultures of East and West have met and melded in Kashgar, an important trading post on the ancient Silk Road, and that has shown in the evolution of local fashion.

Without any professional training in fashion design or dressmaking, Mewlan asked his mother for help. To reproduce all the costumes, Mewlan and Aygul collected a wealth of historical documents and old photos, and visited many old tailors to gain inspiration.

They spent a whole week making their first costume. The cash-strapped designers had to produce a prototype using cheap fabrics before making the real piece. For a while, Mewlan took a part-time job in a restaurant simply so he could use the printer there to print out all the file photos he found online for free.

In order to find the best jewelry to go with the costumes, he visited jewelry makers shop by shop to spark his imagination. A friend in France saw one of his social media posts asking for information about old Xinjiang jewelry, and later contacted him to say they remembered seeing a pair of old earrings in a pawnshop in Paris.

"A pair of silver earrings like that usually cost 1,000 to 2,000 yuan ($146 to $292), but the pawnbroker insisted on selling them to me at a price of 4,000 yuan, not a penny less," Mewlan said. He had to spend a large part of his savings to get hold of the earrings.

The mother and son spent five months sewing dozens of costumes, which are gracefully showcased by Uygur model Mireay Memet in the video.

In another video, Mewlan recreates different century-old costumes that were popular in Xinjiang's cities and prefectures.

"I hope I can show the world the real beauty of traditional costumes," he said. "The pursuit of beauty is a natural and sincere desire of people in all countries and all ethnic groups. The world is changing. China is developing, and so is Xinjiang. A changing society is reflected in local fashion trends."