A Disney cartoon introduced the world at large to the fashion of the Miao nationality, but there's a growing debate over how best to preserve the cultural traditions of China's ethnic minorities. Some say modernization will destroy them. In the hills of southwest China, centuries of isolation have led the people of Miao nationality to cultivate a unique culture and dress style that few outsiders would recognize - unless you saw the Disney animated film "Mulan 2."

While ethnologists fret over cultures endangered by the encroachment of modern life, many ethnic skills and motifs are being reinvented and incorporated into global culture - particularly in the field of fashion.

"From 2004 to 2006, I mailed many embroidery pieces of the Miao ethnic minority to my friend Theras Shneider, who was a costume designer for 'Mulan 2,' the Disney animated film based on the eponymous Chinese heroine, and he put the patterns on the heroine's sleeves," says Pan Shouyong, a professor at the Beijing-based Minzu University of China, formerly known as the Central University of Nationalities.

While Disney brought Miao designs to popular culture, haute couture brands were taking them upmarket.

"I remember many designs of the Japanese fashion brand, Issey Miyake, were inspired by the pleated skirts of the Miao people," says Theng Sau Mei, president of the Fashion Designers Society of Singapore.

"I love to use Chinese ethnic flower patterns and openwork cloth in my designs," says Theng. "The casual wear and evening suits I've made are quite popular in Singapore."

They are following a well-trodden catwalk route.

Designer John Galliano, of Christian Dior, once wove a huge Chinese dragon image on one of his creations.

He showed a range of dresses with ethnic embroidery, batiks, tassels and Chinese knots at fashion shows in Paris from 1998 to 2002.

Yves Saint Laurent chose ethnic jacquard weaving, brocade and embroidery to create a brilliant style at the 2004/2005 summer and winter show, says Li Hong, professor with the Museum of Chinese Women and Children (MCWC).

An ethnic clothing exhibition on the sidelines of the 16th World Congress of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences in Kunming, capital city of southwest China's Yunnan Province, sparked a debate over the best way to preserve traditional dress.

Professor Georg Pfeffer, of the Freie Universitat of Berlin, says modernizing ethnic culture will destroy its originality.

"Traditional clothes should not be kept in museums of big cities. Their hometown should be the only place where people wear them."

But others argue that the catwalk acclaim is breathing new life into disappearing cultures.