When the winners of the Olympic Games ascend the podium and take over the medals from the awarding guests, it is undoubtedly a high-profile moment. A listed company named Hangzhou Wensli Silk Culture Co.Ltd(301066) (301066, SZ) provides ribbons for the medals of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games.
In 2021, Hangzhou Wensli Silk Culture Co.Ltd(301066) IPO was successful and landed in the capital market. It is known as “the first share of Chinese silk culture and innovation”. It is a licensed manufacturer and retailer of the Winter Olympic Games, and can produce and sell relevant silk products within the scope of authorization. As of January 28, Hangzhou Wensli Silk Culture Co.Ltd(301066) closed at 24.17 yuan / share, with a total market value of more than 3.2 billion yuan.
The reporter of the daily economic news learned from Hangzhou Wensli Silk Culture Co.Ltd(301066) that after becoming the manufacturer of medal ribbons for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, in 2022, Hangzhou Wensli Silk Culture Co.Ltd(301066) customized 1600 medal ribbons for the Beijing Winter Olympic Games again. Li Jianhua, chairman of Hangzhou Wensli Silk Culture Co.Ltd(301066) revealed that “since receiving the task in October 2020, we have made an in-depth discussion with the ribbon design unit on the high standard presentation of fabric performance, pattern and color, and the design and proofing alone will take one year”.
The small details in the ribbon are great
For the overall design idea of the ribbon, Li Jianhua introduced that after hundreds of proofing and multiple rounds of modification and adjustment of the design scheme, the ribbon presentation scheme was finally determined: Based on Chinese traditional culture, silk culture and the humanistic feelings of the Beijing Winter Olympics, green, low-carbon and environmental protection technology was used to show “Chinese beauty” in details.
Compared with any previous Olympic Games, the material of medal ribbon is mostly polyester chemical fiber, which is convenient to manufacture and easy to take care of. Even in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, the material of ribbon is only 38% of mulberry silk. However, this winter Olympic Games insists that the ribbon must be 100% Chinese traditional silk to convey the cultural connotation of “the most Chinese” of the ribbon. In order to better highlight this connotation, Hangzhou Wensli Silk Culture Co.Ltd(301066) , the company selected 6A top mulberry silk raw materials with excellent softness, gloss and toughness to present this quality and meaning.
In addition, the design pattern of the Olympic ribbon is filled with “ice and snow pattern”, which is quite humanistic. At the same time, cold plum and ice and snow fit the characteristics of the Winter Olympic Games.
Different from the previous simple practice that the core graphics and logo patterns are directly printed on the ribbon, the ribbon of this winter Olympic Games adopts weaving “ice and snow pattern”. In order to make each “ice and snow pattern” more three-dimensional aesthetic, Hangzhou Wensli Silk Culture Co.Ltd(301066) specially invited Qian Xiaoping, the inheritor of the weaving technology of song brocade of intangible cultural heritage, to give guidance, so that the ribbon fully absorbed the process characteristics of song brocade blooming at the same time with longitude and latitude, making the pattern more prominent. When the ribbon is held in hand, it can not only truly touch the fine pattern of “ice and snow pattern”, but also rotate the ribbon, You can also feel the “shining” of snow and ice.
Although this special manufacturing process of “weaving before printing” is labor-consuming, time-consuming and difficult, the patterns woven look more solemn and generous, and the details are more elegant.
It can bear 90kg without breaking
The medals of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games are 8.7 cm in diameter and 550 grams in net weight. They are really “heavy” hanging around the neck, which also poses a great challenge to the soft silk ribbon. How to overcome the pattern deformation caused by the tension of the ribbon caused by the vertical suspension of overweight medals? How to ensure that the ribbon can firmly tie the “heavy” medal?
According to the introduction of Hangzhou Wensli Silk Culture Co.Ltd(301066) , Hangzhou Wensli Silk Culture Co.Ltd(301066) R & D team finally decided to use five tissue mulberry satins with a thickness of 24 mm, and specially treated the warp and weft silk thread, which greatly reduced the shrinkage of the ribbon. It is reported that this weaving process not only retains the luster and beauty of the traditional jacquard, as well as the uniformity of each pattern cycle, but also makes the ribbon withstand the triple strict tests of fastness test, wear resistance test and fracture test. In terms of fastness test, after 8000 ~ 10000 times of excessive friction, the ribbon can still firmly tie the medal, although the surface will be irritable; In terms of wear resistance test, the anti pilling performance of ribbon reaches more than grade 4; In terms of fracture test, the fracture strength test result is more than 900N and the tear strength test result is more than 15N. In other words, the ribbon can hold 90 kilograms of objects without breaking.
At the same time, the medal ribbon of Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games takes the dignified, classical and warm “China Red” as the main color system, and the emblem of Beijing Winter Olympic Games, core graphics and the words “Beijing 2022” appear on the ice and snow shading. As the main visual presentation part of the whole ribbon, it is also the concentrated expression of the most iconic culture. How to reasonably, clearly and rhythmically present these logo elements on the ribbon to reflect the hierarchical beauty and ensure that the printing color will never fade is the most critical link in the ribbon manufacturing process.
“Printing on jacquard fabric itself is a new attempt for us. Not only that, we also need to spray print accurately along the prominent strip patterns and thin and narrow lines of ice and snow patterns. There must be no printing dislocation of 0.1mm, so this is a great challenge.” In the research and development field of Chinese silk technology, Hangzhou Wensli Silk Culture Co.Ltd(301066) said that although Hangzhou Wensli Silk Culture Co.Ltd(301066) has applied innovative technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data to the core links of silk production, and the successfully developed IART digital printing technology can achieve accurate spray printing, in order to ensure nothing wrong, Hangzhou Wensli Silk Culture Co.Ltd(301066) said that the company has organized special technicians to debug the printing equipment for dozens of times, Ensure that the stringent standards of ribbon manufacturing can be met with the best performance. Through the use of artificial intelligence image recognition and processing technology and the high-precision positioning ability of the system, the weft deviation of printing is finally controlled within 1%, that is, the printing error is controlled within 0.1mm.
“The hard and soft silk ribbons set off the metal medals, showing the combination of hardness and softness, adding a more Chinese charm to the medals. The tempering in the field and the thousands of threads on the loom finally converge into a moment of icing on the cake on the Olympic podium.” Hangzhou Wensli Silk Culture Co.Ltd(301066) chairman Li Jianhua said.
