Stitching a plan for progress

A unique event called the Remote Mountain Bazaar in the capital helps embroidery workers from minority areas across the country earn a decent livelihood from their skill.

Pan, a 73-year-old illiterate female embroidery worker who lives in a mountainous area of Guizhou province, earned 520,000 yuan ($74,122) in 2018, while the average annual salary for an employee in a Chinese privately-owned company was 49,575 yuan, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

On Aug 3, a group of embroidery workers like Pan came to Parkview Green Shopping Mall in Chaoyang district of Beijing, to participate in a bazaar, which runs until Sept 29.

The event, called the Remote Mountain Bazaar, is being held by the Eve Group, China's leading high-end menswear brands founded in 1994 by Xia Hua.

Xia, 50, was born in Dalian, Liaoning province.

In 1991, Xia graduated from the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing. Then, after graduation, she began to teach in the university. However, her real dream and passion was something else.

Speaking about it, she said: "In my childhood, my family was very poor, it was a fantasy to wear beautiful clothes. But every New Year's Eve, I would find new clothes made of old bed sheets by my mom. So a seed was planted in my heart - that maybe one day, I would make beautiful clothes for my friends and family."

In 1994, Xia quit her job to become a sales clerk at Xidan Shopping Mall in Beijing to develop fashion sense. And later in the same year, she founded a company.

Over the years, the company has successively created brands - Eve De Uomo, Notting Hill, Kevin Kelly, Jaques Pritt and Eve De Cina. And they've achieved eye-dazzling sales, especially in the Beijing market, with more than 500 stores in China.

In 2014, seeking a new breakthrough, Xia led her teams to the country's minority areas in the mountains, knocking on doors looking for embroidery workers, hoping to protect and promote traditional ethnic embroidery that is disappearing.