The History of Xiamen Pearl Embroidery

Pearl embroidery originated in the Tang Dynasty and flourished in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. After liberation, this craft was gradually lost. Exquisite design, strong color contrast, beads of various colors are hand-sewn by professional embroidery workers, with unique decorative techniques and artistic style. It is gem-like, novel and unique, with bright colors, and it is made by light refraction and relief. It is an ideal high-end fashion gift and interior decoration for modern life.

Pearl embroidery takes colored glass beads and electro-optic film as raw materials, and adopts various stitches and techniques to make the products have colorful embroidery. There are two kinds of bead embroidery: half bead embroidery and full bead embroidery.

Xiamen bead embroidery has a history of nearly a hundred years. As early as the early 1920s, some overseas Chinese brought back some embroidered slippers decorated with glass beads from overseas. Xiamen folk shoemaker couldn't put it down and was deeply inspired by it. They managed to bring back some glass beads from Japan and Nanyang, and began to try to embroider various flower and bird patterns on the vamps. Therefore, Xiamen Zhu Tuo became popular.

In the 1920s, Datong Road almost became a street in Zhu Tuo. "Huo Yuan Pihang" imported velvet, glass beads and other materials from overseas, and hired some folk artists to make all kinds of slippers, which were not only sold domestically, but also exported to Southeast Asia. In 1950s, Xiamen gathered folk artists and established Xiamen beaded slippers factory, specializing in producing beaded slippers and beaded slippers.

The beaded slippers produced by Xiamen beaded slippers factory are exported to more than 50 countries or regions in Asia, Europe and America. At the first Beijing International Expo held in July 1989, the crystal brand pearl slippers produced by this factory won the gold medal. The main raw materials of bead embroidery are glass beads, electro-optic films and velvet. Its technology is to embroider bas-relief patterns with traditional techniques such as convex embroidery, Ping Xiu embroidery, string embroidery, grain embroidery, random needle embroidery, vertical embroidery and overlapping embroidery.