Liú Hé Xù (鎏荷序)

A Couture Dialogue Between Science and Chinese Artistry

Liú Hé Xù Couture Chinese Gown

Commissioned by Academician Lifeng Chi of the Chinese Academy of Sciences for Kavli Prize Week 2026.

Design Theme

Inspired by swaying lotus and rippling water, this couture gown captures the spirit of the Kavli Prize. Through traditional Chinese craftsmanship, it brings astrophysics, nanoscience, and neuroscience into a poetic dialogue between science and art.

Crafted from silk-wool satin, the gown combines a reimagined mandarin collar with a flowing A-line skirt. Hand embroidery translates the three scientific realms into a visual journey — from the largest to the smallest to the most complex.

The Largest — Astrophysics

Night settles into deep navy satin, while silver threads shimmer across a pond where lotus ripples

spread. The waves gently roll outward, like gravitational waves traveling through the vastness of the universe.

The Smallest — Nanoscience

A lotus rests in stillness. Its petals are outlined in gold thread, with beads arranged in neat rows along the petal veins. This design draws inspiration from the pioneering work published by Academician Lifeng Chi in Science in 2011: the selective C-H activation and dehydrogenative coupling polymerization of linear alkanes on an anisotropic Au(110) surface under mild conditions.

The gold-outlined petals symbolize the Au (110) surface, while two blue beads and one white bead represent a single eicosylbenzene molecule; two molecules are connected by a yellow bead, representing the newly formed C=C double bond. The orderly arrangement of the beads echoes the ordered polymerization of eicosylbenzene within the surface grooves. This breakthrough overturned the view that gold surfaces are catalytically inert, enabled the directed conversion of saturated alkanes, and marked a milestone in on-surface chemistry.

The Most Complex — Neuroscience

Inspired by the 2026 Kavli Prize laureates in Neuroscience — Oswald Steward, Erin Schuman, Christine Holt and Kelsey Martin — this design integrates the structure of a neuron into the lotus: the stamens like dendrites, the receptacle like the soma, the stem like an axon.

Turquoise silk outlines the soma, where scattered golden seed pearls represent ribosomes — once believed to be confined to this cell body. Pale goose-yellow threads branch outward into dendrites, dotted with gold beads as ribosomes — evoking Steward's initial observation under the electron microscope and Schuman's demonstration of functional local protein synthesis in dendrites.

Holt and Martin both focused on axons. A peacock‑blue axon meanders from the soma, punctuated by golden bead clusters referencing periaxonal ribosomal plaques — revealing that axons possess their own translational machinery.

Their findings converge on a single truth: proteins are synthesized precisely where the brain needs them. Now expressed in Chinese hand embroidery, this truth travels beyond the laboratory, beyond the page, into the space between art and science.

Gown Name: Liú Hé Xù (鎏荷序)

Liú (鎏) refers to gilded gold, evoking the Au (110) surface.

Hé (荷) is the lotus, rising unsullied from mud — a symbol of purity, resilience, and devotion to discovery.

Xù (序) carries two meanings — it signifies the ordered polymerization of alkane molecules and moiré-lattice structures, and it also means “prologue,” the beginning from which science sets forth into new frontiers.

The three characters together create a multilayered symbolism, honoring the pursuit of scientific truth through the aesthetic beauty of Chinese characters.

Xiaomei Jiang with Liú Hé Xù

References and online source

1. Zhong, D., Franke, J. H., Podiyanachari, S. K., Blömker, T., Zhang, H., Kehr, G., Erker, G., Fuchs, H., & Chi, L. (2011). Linear alkane polymerization on a gold surface. Science, 334(6053), 213–216.

2. Steward, O., & Levy, W. B. (1982). Preferential localization of polyribosomes under the base of dendritic spines in granule cells of the dentate gyrus. The Journal of Neuroscience, 2(3), 284–291.

3. Kang, H., & Schuman, E. M. (1996). A requirement for local protein synthesis in neurotrophin-induced hippocampal synaptic plasticity. Science (New York, N.Y.), 273(5280), 1402–1406.

4. Holt C. E. (2024). Biological Roles of Local Protein Synthesis in Axons: A Journey of Discovery. Annual Review of Genetics, 58(1), 1–18.

5. Martin, K. C., Casadio, A., Zhu, H., Yaping, E., Rose, J. C., Chen, M., Bailey, C. H., & Kandel, E. R. (1997). Synapse-specific, long-term facilitation of aplysia sensory to motor synapses: a function for local protein synthesis in memory storage. Cell, 91(7), 927–938.

6. Holt, C. E., Martin, K. C., & Schuman, E. M. (2019). Local translation in neurons: visualization and function. Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, 26(7), 557–566.

7. Koenig, E., Martin, R., Titmus, M., & Sotelo-Silveira, J. R. (2000). Cryptic peripheral ribosomal domains distributed intermittently along mammalian myelinated axons. The Journal of Neuroscience, 20(22), 8390–8400.

8. The Kavli Prize. https://www.kavliprize.org/