Seamstress weaves fashion dream for ethnic minority

Seamstress Fan Wenying's greatest wish is to make beautiful clothes and see celebrities wear them someday.

Although no stars have donned her threads yet, her unique designs are already starting to become popular, particularly among the Jing ethnic group.

Fan, who hails from the city of Dongxing in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, designs and produces traditional clothes for the Jing, one of China's smallest minority groups.

Dongxing, which is under the jurisdiction of Guangxi's city of Fangchenggang, is located on the China-Vietnam border and is adjacent to the Vietnamese city of Mong Cai.

Fan's ethnic clothing designs are so distinctive that they were added to Guangxi's regional intangible cultural heritage list in 2010, according to Yang Chanming, deputy director of Dongxing's broadcast, film and television bureau for cultural and physical education.

"I think Fan Wenying is weaving the 'China dream' of the Jing people, which is to develop and promote their distinctive culture around the country, or even the whole world," Yang said.

Fan's desire to create clothing took root in the 1970s, when she was just a teenager. At the time, China was under a planned economy and many people were still living in poverty. Fan and her six brothers and sisters did not even have proper clothes to wear during the Spring Festival holiday.