Entrance of the Out of the Blue exhibition at Fashion Echo, 751D.Park. [Photo by Wang Yun/For chinadaily.com.cn]

An exhibition, Out of the Blue, was launched at Beijing's Fashion Echo, 751D.Park on Monday. The show, which is the result of a project of the same name, displays cloth, clothing and a traditional blue dying technique mainly practiced by Chinese craftsmen in East China's Jiangsu province.

The Out of the Blue project was initiated by Chinese designer You Hongyan, who spent more than eight years studying the ancient dying technique. "The preliminary work took about a year, and I did a lot of field research during 2007 and 2009 with some designers and artists," You said.

According to You, her group has collected more than 300 items of color data, and extracted 120 blue codes. The 10 shades of blue chosen from the color data were then used in producing cloth and clothes displayed at the exhibition.