2020 Artistic Design, Communication and Engineering Science

Jewelry Design of the "Six Etiquettes"

Tingting Wang, Lingling Liu College of Arts, Guilin University of Technology, Guilin 541004, China

Abstract: This paper primarily studies the application of the "six etiquettes" of Chinese traditional wedding custom in jewelry design. For the past few years, the demand for traditional clothing which is named as Hanfu has increased rapidly with the prosperity of traditional clothing. This phenomenon also promotes the development of related industries, such as Hanfu wedding. Because of the love of traditional culture, many young people choose Hanfu wedding. Hanfu wedding is held according to the wedding ceremony that is recorded in historical books, like the Zhou system or Tang system. In the meantime, the Hanfu wedding naturally can not lack the suitable jewelry. "Six etiquettes" is a traditional marriage custom in China and it has been used since Zhou dynasty. It is the complete embodiment from the pledge in love to the marriage, which contains propose a marriage, ask name, divine, send betrothal presents, discuss the wedding date and greet bride personally. This paper takes the "six etiquettes " in traditional culture as the source of inspiration, extracts the elements which includes special meanings, and designs wedding jewelry with modern aesthetics.

Keywords: Jewelry design; Six etiquettes; Hanfu wedding; Wild goose; Deer

1 Introduction

1.1 Background and Main Contents

For the past few years, traditional culture is so inviting that has caused national elements hot, such as the well-known cultural creation of the Palace Museum. Meanwhile, the traditional clothing which is named as Hanfu begins to show charm in the pluralistic stage. The hot of national elements and Hanfu makes us pay more attention to our traditional culture, and more and more young people are fond of them. The prosperity of traditional culture also promotes the development of other industries, like Hanfu wedding. The increasing number of young people choose Chinese traditional wedding, and the demand for marriage decorations with traditional characteristics is gradually increasing. The combination of traditional culture and wedding jewelry will meet the needs of the public well.

1.2 The Thought of Current Situation and Design in Chinese Traditional Wedding Jewelry

The industry of jewelry in China is huge, and one of the greatest selling points of jewelry is marriage jewelry. For example, each gentleman can only customize one diamond ring of DR, and

128 https://doi.org/10.37420/icaces.2020.017

gives it to the only lover in this life. The bracelet with nine treasures in Chow Tai Fook is designed by combining Chinese traditional wedding customs and extracting the most representative moral of luck and wealth. As you can see, the reason why wedding jewelry has excellent selling points is that it not only has beautiful shape but also implies profound meaning. No matter how many kinds of jewelry there are, it will never escape the word "love". People give all the blessings and wishes for marriage and love to jewelry and present it to the lover. Extracting elements from the "six etiquettes " wedding custom to design wedding jewelry which contains beautiful meaning is the combination of wedding culture and wedding jewelry. The excellent jewelry works that are created by this way also improve people's cognition of traditional culture. Based on the online survey and relevant literature, the main customers who are fond of Hanfu and have a greater demand for Hanfu wedding jewelry are young people and mostly are women. For young women, we design a modern wedding jewelry with traditional shape.

2 Wedding Jewelry Design with Six Etiquettes

2.1 The Investigation of Six Etiquettes

"Six etiquettes" is a traditional marriage etiquette in China. During the Western Zhou dynasty, the marriage was basically carried out by following the system of "six etiquettes". "Six etiquettes" is a process that includes a series of etiquettes and customs. According to the regulations, the wedding is complete only it finishes proposing a marriage, asking name, divination, sending betrothal presents, discussing the wedding date and greeting bride personally. Proposing a marriage is to visit to the lady's family to seek a marriage alliance. The book which is named Ceremony describes the circumstances of proposing a marriage, it is said that the bridegroom should use wild goose. The "wild goose" is used as a gift, because it only spouses once in its life. The gift expresses the loyalty to the marriage and symbolizes the same mind of couple.

Figure 1 Wild Goose

Asking name is to inquire the woman's last name and birth date in order to avoid marriage with the same surname and divine. It is usually carried out with proposing a marriage. Divination is carried out after asking name. It is described in the Book of Songs, Folk Songs of Wei and the Common People that the divination is good and the dowry will be taken away by bridegroom’s carriage. The result of divination in Zhou dynasty is significance. Every couple is supposed to divine to predict the marriage, which also showed that people had a very prudent attitude

129 2020 Artistic Design, Communication and Engineering Science

towards marriage at that time. Divination is a mode to test good or ill luck, and people always use tortoise shell or milfoil to make predictions.

Figure 2 Tortoise Shell Figure 3 Milfoil

Sending betrothal presents is the betrothal gifts that is provided by bridegroom. The betrothal presents that are provided by common people are not more than five pure silks. Scholar would give red or black textiles, a bunch of silk and deer skin while the feudal princes and the emperor will add two special kinds of jades. The deer skin represents the meaning of good luck. The whole deer was provided before that, but it was too troublesome. In some places, there were no deer, so a deer- like animal was caught instead. People would roll up a long silk from both sides to the middle and regarded it as a bunch, a bunch of silk which is one hundred cubits in length is a bolt of cloth. Two special kinds of jades are ritual jades, and the feudal princes and the emperor used them to get married.

Figure 4 Jade in the shape of a deer in Shang and Zhou dynasty.

Discussing the wedding date is the final consultation at the bride’s home after the bridegroom chooses the wedding date. Greeting bride personally is the step that the bridegroom goes to the bride's home in person to marry the bride. The book which is named Ceremony describes the circumstances of proposing a marriage, it is said that the couple will take an ink wagon and hold a candle in hand to lighten the road. In the pre-Qin dynasty, a carriage was used for greeting the bride, but bridal sedan chair was used instead since the Song dynasty. After greeting the bride, they will eat and drink together in order to become husband and wife. The wine set is bottle gourd which is split into two gourds and tied with a red line. The whole set of procedures is very special and has strong cultural connotation, which fully

130 https://doi.org/10.37420/icaces.2020.017

reflects the importance of marriage.

Figure 5 A carriage in pre-Qin dynasty Figure 6 Wine set for marriage

2.2 Market Investigation of Wedding Jewelry

We conducted investigation and analysis on the wedding jewelry of foreign famous brands like Van Cleef & Arpels, Chaumet, Bulgari, Bosilong, Tiffany, Swarovski, and domestic well-known brands such as Chow Sang Sang, Lukfook Jewellery, Chow Tai Fook, LaoFengXiang, China Gold, Millennium Star and Lamchiu Golden. On the market, the usual jewelry materials are gold, silver and platinum. Through the analysis of the products which are in the market, rings and mainly diamond rings are the main foreign wedding jewelry. Influenced by foreign culture, most weddings in domestic are western-style or western-style weddings with Chinese characteristics. Wedding jewelry is also under the influence of foreign countries, and diamond rings are used for both engagement and marriage in China. Markets are diversified in China, some merchants do not ignore the tradition when

Figure 7 Criss-cross Analysis

131 2020 Artistic Design, Communication and Engineering Science

pay attention to the western-style romance. They made a lot of innovative design for wedding jewelry in Chinese style, especially Chow Sang Sang, Lukfook Jewellery, Chow Tai Fook and LaoFengXiang. The jewelry not only keeps the characteristic of Chinese style but also has the concision in western- style, and the mostly material is gold.

2.3 Scheme of Drawing and Design

After the analysis by looking up lots of data and doing mind mapping, we get some elements that can be used to design. By taking advantage of those elements, we start to conceive and try to make a rough drawing. After the filtrating of the rough drawing, we choose a possible scheme to deeply draw, and select a uniform style which is more suitable for the wedding. And on this basis, we conduct a series of designs to create a set of wedding jewelry.

Figure 8 Rough Drawing 1 Figure 9 Rough Drawing 2

Figure 10 Rough Drawing 3 Figure 11 Rough Drawing 4

3 The Implementation of Scheme

3.1 The Final Design

Figure 12 The overall design sketch of jewelry 132 https://doi.org/10.37420/icaces.2020.017

Figure 13 Front view of ring Figure 14 Surface view of ring

Taking the wild goose as a gift and holding the wild goose to seek a marriage alliance is the design sources of the ring (Fig. 13). The body of the ring is designed to describe the scene of "wild goose in hand", which presents the situation of proposing a marriage. In the middle of the ring, we inlay diamond to decorate and express the affection is firm as a rock, pure and flawless. He holds the wild goose to engage, makes a couple for life and a pair of shadows. The body of ring is gold to distinguish from the "wild goose" and diamond, and it highlights the theme of "wild goose" by using different color in materials.

Figure 16 Detailed drawing of necklace clasp

Figure 15 Necklace Figure 17 Detailed drawing of necklace pendant

In the Book of Songs, Folk Songs of Wei and the Common People, this is a verse to describe the process of divination. It is that the divination is good and the dowry will be taken away by bridegroom’s carriage. And we design the necklace (Fig. 15) by absorbing this poem. At that time, only the result of divination was good could they take the next step. People used the tortoise shell to get good luck or bad luck in those days. The key point of "divination" is the word "lucky", so we design the pendant by using the word "lucky" in oracle bone script. The joint of the necklace was designed by using the tortoise shell of simplified elements, and we will get a satisfactory result when fasten the loop.

133 2020 Artistic Design, Communication and Engineering Science

Figure 18 Hairpin 1 Figure 19 Hair crown Figure 20 Hairpin 2

After the divination, there is sending betrothal presents. The main part of the hair crown (Fig. 19) is a pair of golden deer which is matched with clouds and flowers. The deer is walking in the forest, with blue sky, white clouds and beautiful flowers, which creates a peaceful and beautiful scene. We use the blooming of flowers to design the hair crown, which represents this pleasure. And the deer is on behalf of good luck, so we make it as a gift. The whole of the hair crown is golden, we intersperse two pink flowers on both sides to add tint, then adorn some pearl pendants which will sway to make the crown more vivid. The last step of the ceremony is greeting bride personally. The bridegroom dressed in propitious clothes goes to marry in person on a dark night and then returns by carriage. The hairpin (Fig. 18) uses the carriage to be the main body, and is made of copper. Then the red jewel which is inset in the middle of the wheel is just like the sun sending out a golden light falling on the carriage. Through the golden light, there is the blue sheen in the sky.

Figure 21 Earrings in the shape of gourd 1 Figure 22 Earrings in the shape of gourd 2

We design the earrings by using the parted gourd (Fig. 20). After greeting bride personally, the couple must drink and eat together in the wedding room. When they drink, the wine set is a gourd whish is divided into two parts. This is to show the husband and wife will accompany each other in the future.

3.2 Manufacture of Material Object

3.2.1 The Material and Craft of Jewelry

As we all know, gold is the first choice for making wedding jewelry. However, gold is not only expensive but also heavy. As a result, we choose copper as the material. What we should notice is that the anti-oxidation treatment must be done well to keep its luster. In the old days, jewelry was mostly made by hand. With the change in times, more and more

134 https://doi.org/10.37420/icaces.2020.017

new technologies are constantly emerging, which brings more convenience. And the maturity of 3D printing technology can be well applied to design jewelry. With the assistance of modeling software like Rhino, we can model our design ideas and then generate files with STL format. Then it can be printed by wax printers with high precision. After the wax mold is created, it can be directly turned and cast. At last, what we need to do is to deal with details and the material object is completed.

3.2.2 Results Show of Material Object

Figure 23 The overall design sketch of material object

Figure 24 Real product picture of hairpin Figure 25 Real product picture of ring

4 Conclusion

Through studying the etiquette culture of "six etiquettes", this paper designs a series of wedding jewelry which suitable for Hanfu wedding. Firstly, we know the market and development prospect of this kind of products. Then we understand the "six etiquettes" deeply after determining the design direction. Through consulting and collecting a large amount of information, we summarize the available elements of "six etiquettes" and then design by making use of them. Finally, all the elements expressed by hand drawing, modeling and rendering. And the wedding jewelry with "six etiquettes" as the element eventually appears after several modifications.

135 2020 Artistic Design, Communication and Engineering Science

Funding

This research was supported by the "Ideological and Political Model Course of Tourism Product Design" which is set up in teaching construction and reform project of undergraduate in Guilin University of Technology in 2020 [No. KCSZ202020].

References

[1] Lei, M. (2011). Cultural Investigation of the Ceremony. PhD. Dissertation. Shanxi Normal University. [2] Yan, L. (2015). Study on the Wedding "Six Etiquettes" in View of Marriage Poetry in The Book of Songs. Journal of Daqing Normal University, 38(05), 104-107. [3] Ji, X. Y. (2019). Exploration on Western Zhou Marriage Culture. PhD. Dissertation. Central China Normal University. [4] Wu, Y. N., & Zhang, H. T. (2013). Innovative Thinking of Chinese Wedding Jewelry Design. Art and Technology, 26(04), 203-204. [5] Duo, T. G. (2017). "Hanfu Hot" and Popular Cultural Consumption. PhD. Dissertation. Yunnan University. [6] Wang, W. C., Liang, Q., Wang, W., & He, X. L. (2016). The Beauty of Chinese Hanfu Wedding. Cooperative Economy and Technology, (12), 114-116. [7] Jiang, J. L. (2008). Wild Geese and Ancient Wedding Customs. Chinese Culture, (02), 32- 33. [8] Guo, Y. N. (2006). Research on Wedding in Zhou Dynasty. PhD. Dissertation. Shaanxi Normal University. [9] Yang, H. (2017). "Grow Old Together": the Ancient Chinese Wedding (Volume One). Wuhan Historical Accounts of Past Events, (11), 54, 50. [10] Long Zeng,Yong-jin Liu,Jin Wang,Dong-liang Zhang,Matthew Ming-Fai Yuen. Sketch2Jewelry: Semantic feature modeling for sketch-based jewelry design[J]. Computers & Graphics,2014,38. [11] Wannarumon, S., & Bohez, E. L. (2006). A new aesthetic evolutionary approach for jewelry design. Computer-Aided Design and Applications, 3(1-4), 385-394. [12] Wang. H. Y. (2019). User classified algorithm and model based gold jewelry design definition.Cluster Computing, 22(3). [13] Batista, C. R. (2017). A contribution for Jewelry Design Teaching. The Design Journal, 20(sup1), S4726-S4729.

136