This publication accompanies the University Museum and Art Gallery’s exhibition of traditional Chinese costumes, baby carriers and silver ornaments drawn from the collection of Mei-yin Lee. Elaborately embroidered costumes and baby carriers, most of which originate with the Miao, Dong, Shui and Zhuang ethnic tribes of the south-western Chinese provinces of Guizhou, Yunnan, and Guangxi are decorated with richly coloured, stitched and sewn ornamentations—and sometimes silver applications—indigenous to the particular culture and long-lived traditions they derive from. As some ethnic minorities lack a written script, the symbolism and colour-coding found in their textiles form a visual language that presents an important cultural and anthropological development and heritage still in practice today.