A Yunjin brocade exhibit is on display at Nanjing Yunjin Brocade Museum in Nanjing, east China's Jiangsu Province, June 11, 2026. (Xinhua/Li Bo)

Zhou Shuangxi, a Nanjing native, is a national-level representative inheritor of the craft. In 1973, 18-year-old Zhou joined the Nanjing Yunjin Brocade Research Institute as an apprentice. He has devoted himself to the craft for more than five decades.

In the 1980s, Zhou and his colleagues successfully reproduced a dragon robe fabric with twisted gold and peacock feather threads, reviving a weaving craft lost for more than three centuries. "I think that reproducing cultural relics is essential for Yunjin brocade making," said Zhou, "as the restoration process itself is a way to understand and revive the craft."