The Museum
Taichung Museum of Fiber Arts is Taiwan’s only professional, “fiber-themed” museum. With the mission to exhibit Fiber, Fashion, and Green Craft, it strives to promote and research fiber materials and fiber art, while combining traditional crafts and contemporary ideas to instill new energy into Fiber Art in Taiwan.
We are so accustomed to many daily items that we hardly notice them. Nevertheless, they form the ever-evolving backdrop that help make our lives better. Textile products too, are essential goods in people’s lives, especially fashion and jewelry. As textiles evolve with changing technology and culture, they deeply impact our daily life.
A strong example is the shared culture of school uniforms that are a unique part of our formative experiences. One of the most quintessential, unforgettable periods are the Senior High School years during which, despite our budding individuality we were still required to wear uniforms. This period thus reminds us strongly of our youthful days, when we were all once young!
The Exhibition
The exhibition “Senior High School Uniform Exhibition: Our Pasts from the Bygone Years” takes you on a journey through time and place to feel how the youthful, high school years were experienced through the uniforms of different eras.
Recreating campus life of the Taiwan Restoration period, the exhibition begins with senior high school and vocational school uniforms from the “haircut restriction” period. This was a time when we played a never-ending game of hide-and-seek with the military instructors employed to enforce school rules on campus. While we tried to express our personalities by growing our hair too long, shortening skirts and widening trousers in response to the ever-changing fashion trends that marked our wild, youthful days, it was their thankless job to catch us out!
This exhibition showcases the diversity of Taiwan’s senior high school student uniforms and Taiwanese industry’s international competitiveness across time. Our focuses on three major themes: Uniform Evolution, Textile Industry, and Campus Culture set in a cultural and historical context to illustrate the development of the aesthetics, technology and fashion.
The Concept
Using the concept of Tracks of Life to represent senior high school and vocational school, the exhibition is a complete, immersive campus experience visualizing culture, campus memories, and craftsmanship. Seeking to recreate the memories from the youthful days “when we were all young” our Time-Travel Journey takes you through 6 Sections:
Starting Line of Youth; Youth Track; Internship Factory; 10 Minutes of Recess; Memories of Youth; and Time Travel to Campus Life. You can also relive the wonders of youth through do-it-yourself art and culture experiences.
1. Starting Line of Youth
The first section showcases the evolutionary history of high school uniforms, and the textile manufacturing processes in different eras.
With a wealth of historic materials and photographs The Evolution of High School Uniforms section was created by the author of “Taiwan Costume History”, full-time assistant professor Li-Chung Yeh of the Department of Fashion Design, Shih Chien University.
The Textile Manufacturing Process section was created in collaboration with the Textile and the Dyeing and Finishing Departments at Sha-Lu Industrial High School. It showcases the basic creation of textiles from fiber, spinning, weaving, dyeing, to printing and displays textile and dyeing and finishing equipment.
Sha-Lu District and its vocational high school played a vital role in the history of Taiwan’s apparel industry. At its peak, there were about 550 manufacturers here and it was the mainstay for Taiwan’s apparel manufacturers and wholesalers. Sha-Lu Industrial High School already had a Textile Department when it was founded in 1952 and the Dyeing and Finishing Department was added in 1974. The only vocational high school in Taiwan with both textile and dyeing and finishing departments, Sha-Lu became the best-known vocational school for textile professionals.
2. Youth Track
This section offers displays actual uniforms. The sports arena represents a Track for Growth, a relay race for youth with different schools competing with each other through uniform design. Hailing from 4 different districts, there are 35 different school uniforms from Taichung city’s municipal and private senior high school and vocational schools.
3. Memories of Youth
This area recreates A Typical Classroom with marks on the blackboards and teacher’s podium from which they exert their authority. The student’s desks and chairs are covered with various messages written with color and white-out markers, as well as a view to the outside through the windows taking us back to the happy days of campus life. This is a great spot for taking photos.
4. Internship Factory
For you to learn about the process of making uniforms the exhibit uses an Internship Classroom as a setting to promote sewing craftsmanship culture. Here you can see sewing machines, mannequins and a garment section with cutting tables and other tools and equipment. Together they demonstrate the steps of making garments from pattern making, sewing, ironing, and electronic embroidery.
5. 10 minutes of recess
Here, we recreated the Campus Store where many important memories from school were formed. Young people are always hungry, and the booths for hot food, snacks, drinks, ice creams, stationary and much else are the place to meet during recess. Long live youth!
6. Time Travel to Campus Life
Playing in an Ambience Room, the music video “Tuo” (Pioneer) featuring students in uniform is from the 2022 Nation-wide High School Student Graduation Chorus. Together with historical photos it brings back “our youthful memories” from the past.
The video was created with participants from Youth Senior High School, Mingdao High School, Chung Gang Senior High School, Wen-Hua Senior High School, Hui-Wen High School, Stella Matutina Girls’ High School, The Affiliated Senior High School of National Chung Hsing University, and Taichung First Senior High School.
