Lin Ruixiang

01 · Lineage & Regional School

In 1946 he became an apprentice at the Shanghai Hengsheng Western Tailoring Shop, the first disciple of Xu Yuzhang, second-generation bearer of the Hengsheng tradition; he specialised in cutting and remained with the Hengsheng company thereafter. Within the regional tradition and school record of Zhongshi Garment Making Craftsmanship in Jingan, Shanghai: The origins of Fengbang tailoring lie in the ready-made clothing trade cluster of old Shanghai, where the local-bang (bengbang) tailors and the Fengbang tailors parted ways. Hengsheng was founded by Xu Jisheng in 1929, and his eldest son Xu Yuzhang carried on the business; it stood in the same city as Fuchang, opened in the first year of the Daoguang reign, as well as Wangrongtai, Hechang, and Rongchangxiang, each vying with the others on craftsmanship. In the hands of masters from Fenghua, Ningbo, the Fengbang formed the "Red Gang" (hongbang) lineage, which divided from tailors specializing in traditional Chinese-style garments; thereafter the Hengsheng line won its place in Shanghai through its improvements to the Zhongshan suit and its crisp, slim-fitting, close-sleeved styling, becoming one of the most famous of the Fengbang establishments. The Fengbang tailoring tradition from which the Hengsheng technique derives originated in the fifty-ninth year of the Qianlong reign (1794), and has a history of more than two hundred years. "Hengsheng" was founded in 1929 by the Fengbang tailor Xu Jisheng, and his eldest son Xu Yuzhang later inherited his father's trade.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

He is a national representative bearer of Chinese-style Garment Making Craftsmanship (Hengsheng Fengbang Tailoring Craftsmanship), a fourth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. He is a senior garment designer. He improved and refined the ten workmanship heads (shigongtou) that characterise Hengsheng's craft; the new-style fine men's garments he planned and produced opened up Hengsheng's distinctive youth style cut, which won the approval of industry peers and the welcome of a broad body of consumers. Within the documented technical tradition of Zhongshi Garment Making Craftsmanship in Jingan, Shanghai: In the first year of the Daoguang reign (1821), the "Fuchang" Fengbang tailor shop was born in Shanghai; thereafter, the Fengbang tailor shops "Wangrongtai" (1891), "Hechang" (1896), and "Rongchangxiang" (1910) opened one after another. To this day, Fengbang tailoring has made major contributions to the formation and flourishing of Chinese dress culture. The Xu father and sons continuously innovated, forming the distinctive character of the Fengbang style. Historically, Hengsheng became famous in Shanghai for, among other things, improving the Zhongshan suit (Sun Yat-sen suit) and creating the slim-fitting, close-sleeved, fashionably crisp Hengsheng style of the Fengbang tradition, establishing Hengsheng's leading and pillar position among Fengbang tailors and making it one of the most famous Fengbang establishments in old Shanghai. In making garments, Hengsheng emphasizes the "four skills" - dao work (cutting), che work (machine sewing), shou work (hand stitching), and tang work (pressing) - and attains the "nine postures" (xieshi, pangshi, woshi, gaishi, aoshi, qiaoshi, shengshi, yuanshi, and wanshi) and the "sixteen characters" (ping, fu, shun, zhi, yuan, deng, ting, man, bo, song, yun, ruan, huo, qing, wo, and gai). Its works are both practical garments and worthy of being called works of craft. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "The four skills: knife, machine, hand and ironing": Four basic skills of the Fengbang tailor—cutting, machine work, hand work and pressing—must all be present for a garment to take its shape. "Nine postures and sixteen criteria": Nine postures and sixteen criteria form the old yardstick by which the tailor gauges stiffness, thickness and hang. "Reforming the Zhongshan suit": The shop reformed the Zhongshan suit and created a slim, close-sleeved, sharply pressed silhouette, winning fame in Shanghai. "The founding and succession of Hengsheng": The craft reaches back to 1794; the Hengsheng firm was founded by Xu Jisheng in 1929 and carried on by his eldest son Xu Yuzhang.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

Male, Han ethnicity, born in February 1931, died in November 2013, a native of Shanghai. He placed importance on teaching the next generation and helped the company train a large number of new-generation Hengsheng technicians.

04 · Associated Heritage Item Dossier

05 · Fellow National Bearers Lineage

National representative bearers recorded under the same item code, ordered from the first to the sixth batch. Batch order is not a teacher–student relationship.

06 · Archival Sources & Bibliography

1. Lin Ruixiang · National Representative Bearer Archive