Shiliuyun-Xinjiang Daily (Reporter: Zhang Dongmei) news: In the early morning of November 12, 2025, the smart factory of Loulan Garment Co., Ltd. in Xinjiang was already a hive of activity. Tao Tao stared at the production data on her screen, her fingertips gliding over the touchpad as she checked the progress of the "five planets rising from the East" line of down scarves.

"These have to hit the market before the end of the month," she reminded the technical director.

Photo taken on November 12, 2025 shows Tao Tao checks the production progress in a workshop. (Photo offered by Tao Tao)

Tao Tao, who is 50 years old, is the founder of the company. Ever since she was a child, she has dreamed of bringing the most beautiful clothes to the people of her hometown.

Tao Tao's mother was a tailor living in the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps. When Tao Tao was a child, her mother would make clothes for her exactly as she imagined. This private happiness planted the seed of fashion design in her heart. In her last year of high school, she defied her mother’s objections and insisted on applying for a major in fashion design.

After graduating in 1997, she moved to Korla City, Bayingolin Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, where her parents had also settled. As she couldn't find a job related to her major, she could only draw billboards in an advertising company. "Did I study fashion just to paint billboards?" Refusing to accept defeat, she decided to start her own business. At the beginning, she and her classmates started a clothing training business, offering design and cutting classes. However, due to the difficulty in recruiting students, she often had to hold up signs to recruit students on the streets or even go to the countryside.

The turning point came in 1998. Xinjiang Film Studio needed 80 sets of dance performance costumes for making a film. They found Tao Tao through an advertisement. “My trainees and I worked for three days and nights,” she recalled. “From the director’s description we sketched the designs and rushed the costumes to completion.” That single order nudged her from teaching into full-scale garment production. In 2000, she closed the training program, registered her own company, and devoted herself entirely to manufacturing. From there her business steadily found its stride.

That same year, she made her first trip to China Fashion Week and swore to herself: One day she would stage her own runway show. She began sketching collections, and that stubborn promise to her dream kept her working for more than a decade.

Tao Tao said that, perhaps because she was born in the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, she feels a special awe for Populus euphratica that refuse to fall even when withered. So she created the "Tribute to the Poplars" series. "The diverse yet integrated culture of Xinjiang is unique and charming. I will lift its veil with a needle and thread."

In 2013, she unveiled her "Love for Loulan" collection, weaving in Xinjiang motifs such as camels, deserts and populus euphratica, and it quickly drew attention. In October 2014, she finally stepped onto China Fashion Week with her own runway show, presenting her design to the world. Two years later, in October 2016, she was named one of China’s top ten fashion designers at a national awards.

An unexpected commission introduced her to Atlas silk. A client ordered a custom-made Atlas-silk qipao to wear on a CCTV show. Under the studio lights the dress dazzled, and its instant success showed Tao Tao her next path. From that moment she resolved to weave Atlas into contemporary fashion, letting an ancient craft shine through modern silhouettes.

To truly understand Atlas silk, she took her team straight to the source, studying the traditional warp-tie-dyeing craft of Atlas silk on-site. After countless trials, she cracked the code: using digital printing to deconstruct, reassemble and reinvent the ancient patterns, she fused a thousand-year-old technique with modern fashion.

Many moments along the way are etched in her memory. In August 2016, she brought thirteen village tailors from Kizilsu Kirgiz Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang to Suzhou University for training. On the eve of their departure, using the Atlas silk they had carried with them, the women finished two pieces in eight hours, both of which were accepted into the university's permanent collection.

What surprised her even more was that two months later, 47-year-old Patgul Sabit, one of the rural tailors, and her husband traveled from Kizilsu Kirgiz Autonomous Prefecture to find her, just to ask her to polish the renderings in preparation for the design competition.

"When she took out the renderings drawn on cardboard and newspapers from her bag, I was particularly surprised and moved by her persistence," Tao Tao recalled.

Photo taken on November 12, 2025 shows Tao Tao looks at a sample of winter down scarves in the studio. (Photo offered by Tao Tao)

The power of holding on to a dream is unstoppable. In 2019, at a press conference where she had already become a local celebrity, Patgul walked straight up to Tao Tao, thanked her, and presented her with a dress she had sewn by hand.

Today, Tao Tao's footprint keeps widening. She now owns four directly-operated stores that stock more than 200 styles of clothing and accessories. Inside the company, an Atlas Silk Cultural-Creative Design Center hums with activity; twelve designers birth over ten fresh concepts every month, spanning garments to lifestyle gifts. Down the corridor the R&D hub is pushing the "five planets rising from the East" line forward: autumn’s neo-Chinese-style vests are already selling well, while winter's down scarves and quilted coats are queued for launch within weeks.

Next year, she plans to build an Atlas art museum and a study tour base. I am particularly fortunate to be able to do what I love all my life and spread culture through my works," she said. She added that she hoped every piece of clothing she made would become a flowing story of Xinjiang, allowing the snow of the Tianshan Mountains and the wind of the desert to reach the world.

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