Baluch rugs, Filipino textiles, Indian textile labels and Indonesian batik in manuscripts

On Saturday 10 December 2022 a webinar entitled The Intrigue of Baluch Rugs will be jointly hosted by the TMA/SC, NERS and the Textile Museum. The speaker will be DeWitt Mallary, an independent scholar from Vermont, who has written extensively on this subject.

“The set of rugs bought, sold and collected under the catch-all name “Baluch” actually includes the products of a number of weaving groups in different areas of northeast Iran and northwest Afghanistan.

In addition to certain iconic types, there is an uncommon diversity of idiosyncratic, creative mixing of designs and styles. The most exciting examples of Baluch weaving all use outstanding wool, enabling intensely saturated colors. This virtual presentation led by DeWitt Mallary will look at many of the finest examples of Baluch rugs and bags of various types, and discuss what makes them outstanding, letting the objects demonstrate the intrigue of this group of weavings.” – TMA/SC

This free event takes place at 09:00 PT, which is 17:00 GMT, and you can register for it here.

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Baluch lovers may also be interested in this new book by Thomas Cole, From The Land Of The Sun: The Richard Stewart Collection Of Baluch Rugs, Bags & Trappings. It includes over a hundred colour plates, as well as many previously unpublished photographs from the region.

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A reminder that the Fabricating Fashion exhibition at the Art Institute Chicago ends on 02 January 2023. This exhibition “celebrates the artistry and rich legacy of an extraordinary range of fabrics for clothing around the world……. While a number of techniques showcased in this presentation—such as dyeing, embroidery, printing, and weaving—are practiced globally, other materials and methods are more closely associated with particular cultures: Indian cotton, Chinese silk, French embroidery, West African indigo, among them.” – AIC website

Woman’s Adire Wrapper, mid-20^th century, Yoruba

A free virtual lecture will take place on Monday 12 December at 14:00 CST, which is 20:00 GMT. Curators Melinda Watt and Monika Bincsik will discuss the strategies they have used in this exhibition “for exhibiting clothing and textiles to highlight that fashion in locations around the globe shows mutual interrelationships”. You can register for it here.

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I’ve blogged previously about the current exhibition at the Ayala Museum in Manila. Intertwined: Transpacific, Transcultural Philippines closes at the end of this month. Next Saturday 10 December will see the launch via Zoom of the exhibition catalogue. This takes place at 17:00 local time, which is unfortunately 01:00 on the 11^th GMT. Register for it here.

“The exhibition and its joint publication open up visual and verbal conversations on the complexities and contradictions of Filipino art and identity. By illuminating the Filipino’s transcultural heritage resulting from pre- and post-colonial maritime exchanges with diverse cultures in Asia, America, and Europe, Filipinos can gain a better understanding of our culture and take pride in the excellence we’ve shown throughout history in the arts, diplomacy, entrepreneurship, and the global economy.” – Ayala Museum

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OATG member Fiona Kerlogue has recently written a guest blog for the British Library on the subject of Batik designs in a Javanese manuscript: Serat Damar Wulan. This particular manuscript illustrates scenes of everyday life in Java in the late eighteenth century. In the blog Dr Kerlogue examines the clothes and textiles depicted in Serat Damar Wulan. This is an extract from her new book on the history of batik, entitled Batik: Traces through time, which is illustrated by collections in the National Museum of the Czech Republic. Many of us enjoyed the talk Fiona gave to the OATG about this collection in September, the recording of which is available to members on our website.

Figure 8. Damar Wulan’s servants in short trousers of striped lurik early in the story. Serat Damar Wulan. British Library, MSS Jav. 89, f. 116v

Figure 9. Now ennobled, Damar Wulan’s servants have adopted superior garments, and have servants of their own wearing lurik. Serat Damar Wulan. British Library, MSS Jav. 89, f. 206r 

“The story [in the manuscript] is particularly significant in relation to costume, partly because of the changes in status which the characters undergo and how these are reflected in the clothes they wear……. The central character, Damar Wulan, is a nobleman but is appointed as stable boy to the ruler of Majapahit, and then imprisoned; eventually he himself becomes king of Majapahit. His changes in status are reflected in the clothes he wears; the clothing worn by other actors in the story also indicates their status.” – Fiona Kerlogue

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Finally advance notice of a book that will definitely be on my list. Russian Textiles: Printed Cloth for the Bazaars of Central Asia has long been a favourite of mine. Its author, Susan Meller, has been working on a new book, which will be published in February 2023, entitled Labels of Empire, Textile Trademarks: Windows into India in the Time of the Raj. With 1285 illustrations of the labels, most of which are in colour, this is sure to be a visual feast.

©Susan Meller

“In the 1880s, when the British textile industry was at its most prosperous to date, much of the world’s population wore at least some article of clothing made from fabric produced in the mills of Lancashire. From 1910 to 1913 alone, more than 8 billion yards of cloth were woven, cut into prescribed lengths, folded, stamped, labeled, and baled. Most of this output was for export–with 40 percent of it shipped to India.

To differentiate their goods, British textile manufacturers pasted illustrated paper labels known as “shipper’s tickets” to the faceplate of each piece of folded cloth sold into the Indian market. Designed, printed, and registered in Manchester, these appealing chromolithographed images drew attention to the offerings of a particular firm–and much like present-day branding, ensured their ongoing notice within the bustling bazaars of India. “ – Susan Meller

Thanks to Chris Martens for reminding me of the works of this author. Do let me know of events and articles to share with other textile lovers!

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Textile events and articles featuring Indonesia, the Philippines, Kazakhstan and Ukraine

The next OATG talk takes place this Thursday, 29 September 2022, so you don’t have long left to register for it!

The speaker is Fiona Kerlogue, who was a lecturer at the University of Jambi in Sumatra and later Deputy Keeper of Anthropology at the Horniman Museum. She is now a Research Associate at SOAS, has published widely on the arts of Southeast Asia . This is sure to be a fascinating talk by an acknowledged expert in her field. Her subject for this particular talk is Translating textiles: The Indonesian collections of Josef Šrogl.

Náprstek Museum collection

“Museum collections in Europe contain large numbers of textiles brought back from various parts of Asia by travellers and European overseas residents, who collected them in a variety of circumstances, not often recorded in the museum documentation. Family correspondence held in the Náprstek Museum, [National Museum], Prague, from one such collector, Josef Srogl, who was collecting in the Dutch East Indies between 1895 and 1922, was passed to the museum at the same time as much of his collection, providing insights into the journey through which the textiles passed. Many of the perspectives of the collector, information about the available sources, insights into his criteria for selection and his thoughts about the intended uses for the textiles are revealed.” This Zoom talk will take place on Thursday 29 September at 18:30 BST.

It is free for OATG members, but there is a small charge for non-members. You can find more details and register for it here.

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The next World Textile Day event is this Saturday 1 October at Saltford near Bristol. Entry to the exhibition and sale is free, but there is a small charge for attendance at the talks – two on sashiko and one on textile trappings.

These events are always very busy, so you are advised to get there early! Full details of the location and facilities, plus a list of vendors can be found here.

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I really enjoyed reading this beautifully illustrated article by Gino Gonzales from the autumn edition of Arts of Asia. The author, Gino Gonzales, “traces the nuanced evolution of the country’s dress and explores how this reflects the psyche of its people”. The full version of The Philippine Dress: 500 years of Straddling Polarities is now available to read here.

Una Mestiza de Manila Vestida de Gala, after Damian Domingo, circa 1820s–1830s, gouache on pith paper, 22.6 x 15.6 cm. Ayala Museum Collection. Arts of Asia

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Many of our members have really missed getting together in person. Next Thursday, 6 October, we have our chance with the long-awaited talk by Maria Wronska-Friend (originally scheduled for April 2020). Maria is currently based in Australia, and we are delighted to be welcoming her to Oxford for this in-person talk. Her subject is Kimono and Sarong: Four centuries of Japanese and Indonesian textile connections.

“The exchange of textiles between Japan and Indonesia was initiated probably in the 17th century by the Dutch traders who, until 1868, had a monopoly in the trade with Japan. As the trade goods used to be dispatched from the ports of Java, at times textiles destined for Indonesian markets were sent to Japan where they became highly treasured goods, incorporated into local dress or used in the tea ceremony. At the same time, at least from the beginning of the 19th century, residents of Java highly treasured Japanese katagami fabrics brought to Batavia as a return cargo from Nagasaki.”

Hand-drawn batik on silk made in 2018 in Yogyakarta, Central Java, for the Japanese market. Private collection

The location for this talk, which begins at 18:30 BST, is the Pauling Centre on Banbury Road, Oxford. It is free for OATG members, but there is a small charge for non-members. You can find more details and register for it here.

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Lovers of Indonesian textiles who are able to visit Switzerland next month are in for a treat. Collector Georges Breguet, who has written recently for our Asian Textiles journal, is exhibiting some of his cloths from the island of Sumba at Vésenaz near Geneva.

The exhibition will open on Saturday 8 October and close on Sunday 23 October – just a short run so don’t delay.

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Also taking place on 8 October is World Textile Day – South of England. The venue is Brockenhurst Hall in Hampshire and as usual there will be an exciting selection of textiles for sale from a variety of different traders.

John and Joan Fisher of Khayamiya with some of their Egyptian wall hangings.

Entrance is free, but there is a small charge should you wish to attend any of the talks – highly recommended. Click here for further details.

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Finally, another article which I recently read and enjoyed. In this issue of Voices On Central Asia the author, Snezhanna Atanova interviews Ukrainian archaeologist Tatiana Krupa, about What Can Golden Horde Fabrics Tell Us About Histories Of Kazakhstan And Ukraine?

Silk textile with Byzantine embroidery from excavations of the 12^th-century Polovtsian burial mound Vesela Grave (Kharkiv region, Ukraine) © Tatiana Krupa

Selected textile talks and exhibitions

Some OATG members have certainly had a busy summer! Speakers in this video of an event hosted by the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, include our founder Ruth Barnes (now at Yale University Art Gallery) and Sandra Sardjono of Tracing Patterns Foundation. They talk about textiles from Indonesia and the Philippines, but the themes they cover are relevant to many more areas.

“Colonialism, changing customs, war, and contemporary collecting practices have all impacted the use and meaning of textiles in Southeast Asia. In this online Re-History Series discussion, a panel of experts explores themes of loss, destruction, and conservation during colonial periods as well as the present day. They will discuss efforts to center the makers’ voices and recover from losses through research, conservation, and collaboration.” – Museum website

Sandra, along with her husband Chris Buckley, has been working on some exciting projects within the Tracing Patterns Foundation and I hope to share more on that work in the near future.

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Our Membership Secretary, David Richardson, is another OATG member who has been busy researching and writing – this time for an article which has just been published in Textiles Asia. The beautifully illustrated article discusses a collection of heirloom textiles from the Indonesian island of Solor, thus linking nicely to one of the subjects talked about by Ruth Barnes in the video above.

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A new exhibition opened last week at the Deutsches Textilmuseum (DTM) in Krefeld. Peru – ein Katzensprung (stone’s throw) celebrates the museum’s important collection of pre-Columbian textiles and runs until 23 April 2023. This is the first major exhibition of Peruvian textiles at the museum since 1959. An impressive 292 textiles are on display – the vast majority of which are from the DTM collection.

In the past pre-Columbian textiles were not bought for the collection from a cultural-historical point of view, but instead because of their motifs and the variety of techniques used. This is discussed in an interesting illustrated paper by Katalin Nagy for the Pre-Columbian Textiles Conference held in 2019. Click here to read The pre-Columbian textile collection of the German Textile Museum Krefeld.

Shirt, uncu, from the Huari Culture (8 – 10 century AD). Dyed camelid hair weft on cotton warp, tapestry weave. © Deutsches Textilmuseum

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This Thursday, 1 September, sees the opening of an exhibition at the California Museum, Sacramento, entitled Between 2 Worlds: Untold Stories of Refugees From Laos. This is a travelling exhibition that was developed by the Center for Lao Studies.

It ” presents crucial stages of the Lao refugee experience, inviting visitors to contemplate ideas of ‘home’ as seen through the eyes of people for whom the notion is precarious, and for those who have lived or are still living between two worlds.” – Museum website

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On Saturday, 3 September 2022, the World Textile Day team will be in Llanidloes, Wales. As usual there will be an eclectic mix of textiles on sale from an interesting group of dealers. This is in addition to the regular programme of talks. Entry to the event is free, with a small charge being made for the optional talks.

Full details can be found here.

Photo from a previous WTD Wales event.

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I seem to be reading more and more about textiles from the Philippines at the moment. This online event hosted by the Ayala Museum in Manila caught my attention. Intertwined Conversations: Transoceanic Journey of Luxury Goods is a conversation between Elena Phipps and Sandra Castro, moderated by Florina Capistrano-Baker. Elena will discuss how luxury goods such as silk, piña and chintz arrived in the Americas via the Manila Galleon trade and the impact these textiles had. Sandra will look at how traditional Philippine materials were used to make souvenirs in the form of Western material culture.

The timing of this event doesn’t work for our UK members (unless you are a real night owl and want to watch it at 2am), but hopefully does for some of our international members – 9 September at 21:00 EST, 18:00 PST, which is 10 September 09:00 in Manila.

For more details and registration click here.

By coincidence the new edition of Arts of Asia focuses on the Philippines, with articles including The Philippine Dress: 500 years of Straddling Polarities and Unfolding a Collection of Indigenous Philippine Textiles.

Cover of Arts of Asia

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The Textile Museum Associates of Southern California hold their next programme in early September. The subject of the webinar is Kimono: Kyoto to Catwalk, and the speaker is Anna Jackson, Keeper of Asian Art at the V&A in London.

“The kimono is an iconic garment. A symbol of Japanese national culture and sensibility, it is generally perceived as a traditional, timeless costume. This talk counters that conception, revealing that the kimono has always been a highly dynamic, fashionable garment. It will explore the social and sartorial significance of the kimono in historical and contemporary contexts both in Japan and in the rest of the world, where its impact on dress styles has been felt since the seventeenth century.” TMA/SC

There will be two Zoom sessions, to accommodate participants from different time zones. The talk will be the same in each case, so please only sign up for one! The first is intended for the Western Hemisphere to India and takes place on Saturday 10 September at 10:00 PDT, 13:00 EDT, 18:00 BST. The registration link can be found here.

The talk will be held again on Sunday 11 September and this is intended for those in the East – 09:00 BST, 15:00 Bangkok, 17:00 Tokyo and 18:00 Sydney. The registration link to this talk can be found here.

Left: Outer kimono for a courtesan (uchikake), 1860- 70 (©Victoria and Albert Museum) 
Right: Kimono ensemble by Hiroko Takahashi, 2009 (©Hiroko Takahashi)

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Events and exhibitions featuring textiles from India, Japan, the Philippines, China and Peru

PLEASE NOTE Subscribers who usually read this blog via their email may need to click on the blue title to access it through our WordPress site instead to enable them to watch the videos.

Finally meeting again in person!

Several OATG members recently visited the Fashion and Textile Museum, London to see the exhibition 150 years of the Royal School of Needlework: Crown to Catwalk. The group was guided around the exhibition by Sue Miller, and were grateful for her insights.

Woollen cloak by Livia Paplernick

One of the pieces that stood out was this wonderful woollen cloak, incorporating cotton hand embroidery, glass, jewels and metal threads. It was one of four pieces made by Livia Paplernick for her final show, and was chosen to represent the contemporary aspect of the Royal School of Needlework.

In my most recent blog I mentioned an event at the Royal Ontario Museum.  The video of Curator Conversations: For the Past, Present and Future of Ajrakh Blockprinting is now available to view at your leisure.

In it Sarah Fee is in conversation with textile artist Salemamad Khatri on his work to create and revitalize Ajrakh blockprinting in Kachchh, India. They are joined by Abdulaziz Khatri, trade manager at Khamir (a platform for the promotion of traditional art) to explore the role of artists and their supporters to preserve and promote the culture, community and environment of Kachchh.  

A key collaborator of Canadian contemporary artist Swapnaa Tamhane in the creation of the exhibition Swapnaa Tamhane: Mobile Palace, Khatri’s work is an integral part of the installations. Here he gives his perspective on the process of producing the textiles for the exhibition, and the difference between producing his own artwork and working with a contemporary visual artist. 

Turning next to a few events taking place around the world.

A new permanent exhibition of textiles has opened at the Ayala Museum in Manila. Skeins of Knowledge, Threads of Wisdom: The Mercedes Zobel Collection of Indigenous Philippine Textiles has been curated by Patricia M. Araneta and Floy Quintos, and the installation was designed by Gino Gonzalez. It shows how the “indigenous textile arts in the Philippines demonstrate the ingenuity, creativity, adaptability, and sophistication of the early Filipinos.” – museum website.

Left: an important tritik technique suit worn only by men of the magani rank. Right: A Bagobo jacket of cloth discarded from sails and sacks, ornamented with trade beads and mother-of-pearl shown above a pair of pantaloons with ikat and beading. Photo © Floy Quintos

Even if (like me) you can’t go to the exhibition, I would strongly recommend reading this excellent guide, produced by the museum. It has superb images – though some of them do take a while to download. I was fascinated to learn that abaca (fibre from a plant in the banana family) cloth gets its sheen from being burnished with a cowrie shell.

Abaca cloth burnished with cowrie shell.

The temporary exhibition Langs Geborduurde Wegen (Along Embroidered Roads) at the Museum de Kantfabriek in Horst, The Netherlands will now be on show until the end of 2022. It showcases some of the textiles from the extensive collection of Ien Rappoldt, who has been visiting Guizhou province for the past two decades, recording the embroidery art of the women.

The special exhibition Humans, Beasts, Gods. Textile Treasures from Ancient Peru continues at the Abegg-Stiftung in Switzerland until 13 November 2022.

Among the holdings of the Abegg-Stiftung in Riggisberg is a small but impressive collection of textiles from Ancient Peru. The majority of these early Peruvian textiles were collected by Werner Abegg between 1930 and 1933.

“The most interesting of these are now presented to the public for the first time in a dedicated exhibition.
The peoples of Ancient Peru were already producing a vast array of finely crafted fabrics and garments over two thousand years ago. That we can marvel at them today is thanks to a combination of climatic and geographical conditions, specifically the dry, salty soils of the desert regions of coastal Peru, in which these precious artefacts were preserved. Protected against both moisture and light, they survived the ravages of time either as offerings to the gods or as grave goods, the burial customs of past civilizations being a crucial factor in the “survival” of countless Peruvian textiles. ” – Museum website

I’ve already blogged several times about the Japanese textiles exhibition currently showing at the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

Dark blue-ground festival kimono decorated with sea creatures; Cloth: cotton; tsutsugaki (freehand resist); The John R. Van Derlip Fund and the Mary Griggs Burke Endowment Fund established by the Mary Livingston Griggs and Mary Griggs Burke FoundationFoundation

On Thursday 18 August textile conservator Dr Ishii Mie will examine Japanese Textiles: Traditional Dyes and Conservation Methods. An associate professor of art at Saga University, Japan, Dr. Ishii will introduce methods of textile conservation and recovery using examples from the royal collection stored at Shuri Castle in Okinawa, which was severely damaged by fire in 2019, and will describe the various techniques of textile dyeing in Japan. This is an in-person event, which begins at 18:30 CDT. Click here to book.

A new exhibition opens this week at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney to coincide with the 75th anniversary of India’s independence.

Textile length decorated with beetle wings, India. Acquired 1883. Powerhouse collection. Photo by Zan Wimberley

The exhibition is called Charka and Kargha – a charka being a spinning wheel and a kargha a loom. “The exhibition will feature over 100 rare items that date back to the foundational collections of the Powerhouse acquired since the 1880s. In addition to their beauty, many of the textiles featured in the exhibition incorporate spinning, weaving, dyeing and embroidery techniques. Highlights include block-printed textiles, known as Fustat fragments, believed to be made in Gujarat in the 1400s.” – Museum website

This exhibition runs until January 2023.

I’ve blogged previously about the Kimono Style exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum in New York. On Saturday 20 August 2022 two Met experts, Monika Bincsik and Marco Leona, “explore the history and modernization of the Japanese kimono. Learn about Japan’s famed weaving, dying, and embroidery techniques along with discoveries from new scientific research.” – Museum website.

Kyōgen suit (Suō) with rabbits jumping over waves, Japan mid-19th century.

This is a pre-recorded programme which will be available on YouTube and Facebook at 10:00 EDT, which is 15:00 BST. Click here for more details.

Textile talks and articles from around the world!

PLEASE NOTE Subscribers who usually read this blog via their email will need to click on the blue title to access it through our WordPress site instead to enable them to watch the video in this blog. 

I recently blogged about a lovely book for children, Mea and the Palm Flowers, produced by OATG member Sandra Sardjono of Tracing Patterns Foundation, with the help of Geneviève Duggan and Ice Tede Dara.

Young girl photographed in Pedero, the setting of the book. © David Richardson

Half of all sale proceeds will be donated to the weavers of the Tewuni Rai group, many of whom lost their homes during the devastating Cyclone Seroja last year. If you are a keen weaver, dyer or collector this would make a great gift for the children in your life.

I loved the enthusiasm of this young boy in his short video review of the book, which can be ordered here!

Video of book review

Sonja Mohr of the Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum in Köln has just informed me of this very interesting article on Philippine piña textiles.

Scarf length, Philippines, mid 1800s, Rhode Island School of Design Museum.

Interrogating Translucence: Biological and Cultural Definitions of Piña is by Abi Lua, whose current thesis project explores Philippine piña textile connoisseurship and mentality. Here she discusses some of the difficulties in identifying piña, from both a biological and cultural point of view.

Sea snail and threads dyed with its ink. ©Selvedge

This article by Keith Recker for Selvedge also caught my attention. In it Keith looks at the colour purple and how it is produced by milking sea snails. The illustrations are excellent, and it was interesting to learn how the “community’s way of life was shaped around the making of purple, and the journey to the coast to dye yarns was a major event. A group of dyers would walk eight days to the coast. It was a real journey……. ‘involving several river crossings. The men would carry their own food, and when their tortillas, beans and coffee ran out, they would work in local farms to be reprovisioned. Once they reached their campsite on the coast, they’d stay for about three months before heading back to Pinotepa”. – Selvedge

Obtaining ink from the sac of the sea snail on Ternate. ©David and Sue Richardson

Sage green from the innards is used to dye these threads. © David and Sue Richardson

This reminded me of the marine dyes, which I have seen produced on the small island of Ternate in the Alor archipelago of Eastern Indonesia. There, two different colours – purple and green – are produced from the same creature. The purple comes from the ink sac and the green from the innards, with what remains going into the pot for supper.

A quick reminder that this is your last chance to sign up for a couple of talks taking place online tomorrow, Saturday 12 February. The first is on molas by Tom Hannaher, whose online presentation is entitled Painting With Scissors: Mola Art of the Kuna (Guna) Indians and takes place at 13:00 EST, which is 18:00 GMT. he second is on Uyghur feltmaking with Christine Martens.  It begins at 11:00 EST, which is 16:00 GMT and you can register for it here.

A weaver at work. ©Andean Textile Arts

The first of the 2022 series of Textile Talks, hosted by Andean Textile Arts, takes place next Tuesday 15 February, when the subject will be Textile Traditions of the Peruvian Highlands. Participants will learn “how Andean weavers use corn husks in their weaving, which natural dye was part of the Incan taxation system, why Andean brides often receive handwoven jakimas as wedding gifts, and so much more.” – ATA website

The talk also features a video, narrated by one of the presenters Jennifer Moore. The other presenter is Ercil Howard-Wroth. Click here for more information and to register. Please note this talk begins at 19:00 EST, which is midnight in the UK.

An akotifahana from the collection of the Royal Ontario Museum.

On Wednesday 16 February ORTS will host a Zoom presentation by Dr Sarah Fee of the Royal Ontario Museum entitled Born of the Indian Ocean:The Textile Arts of Madagascar. The ROM hold 54 Madagascan textiles in their collection, some of which date to the nineteenth century. It was interesting to read about the connection with Omani traders and Indian trade cloths, almost reminiscent of the Silk Road connections. 

There is a lot of excellent information, with very good images and some videos on the ROM website, which I strongly recommend to those interested in Malagasy textiles and culture.

The talk takes place at 18:00 GMT. Non-members wishing to attend should contact Dimity Spiller.

Chief or nobleman’s headdress (detail), Congo, 20th century. The Textile Museum Collection 1962.1.15. Textile Museum acquisition.

Sarah is going to be very busy as she also features in the next in the series of talks from the Textile Museum, centred on the latest edition of the Textile Journal, which she guest-edited.

Cécile Fromont of Yale University will be in discussion with Sarah about Kongo textiles, “which are celebrated as masterpieces of exquisite workmanship but garner limited attention in scholarship.”

This talk takes place on Wednesday 16 February at 12:00 EST, which is 17:00 GMT, and you can register for it here.

Hanbok, © Minjee Kim

On Thursday 17 February the Korea Society will host a live webcast by Dr Minjee Kim entitled Hanbok: A new lexicon of women’s fashion.

“In 2021, hanbok – the generic term referring to traditional style Korean clothing – was registered in the Oxford English Dictionary. In this comprehensive series of lectures, Dr. Minjee Kim, the preeminent scholar of Korean textile and fashion in the U.S., illustrates and elucidates hanbok in sartorial, socio-cultural, and historical contexts.

In the first lecture of the series, Dr. Kim discusses some distinctive qualities of women’s hanbok in comparison with other dress traditions; terminologies of the components and their structural parts; colors, materials, and embellishments; and symbols and ideas behind design principles and ways of dress.” – Korea Society

The webcast begins at 18:00 EST, which is 23:00 GMT and you can register for it here.

Working at the loom. ©Susan Schaefer Davis

On Saturday 19 February the Textile Museum associates of Southern California (TMA/SC) will host a presentation by Susan Schaefer Davis. Her subject will be Women Artisans of Morocco: Their Textiles, Their Stories, Their Lives.

Most textile talks focus, naturally, on the textiles themselves, looking at which materials and techniques were used to create them, in which area they were made etc.

“In this talk, anthropologist, and author of Women Artisans of Morocco, Dr. Susan Schaefer Davis, whose work focuses on Moroccan women, their textiles, changing gender roles, and adolescence, will include all of those aspects of textiles, but will also introduce you to the actual Moroccan women who make them. You will meet several of these women virtually, and to see and learn about the unique textiles they produce, the lives in which they produce them, and their thoughts about their work and goals.”

The talk begins at 10:00 PST, which is 18:00 GMT and you can register for it here.

Textile with embroidered hummingbirds, early Nasca, Peru 100BC – AD 200 
© The Trustees of the British Museum

Our next OATG online event will take place on Thursday 24 February at 18:30 GMT, and the subject will be Peru: A Journey in Time, based on the exhibition at the British Museum. Cecilia Pardo’s talk will introduce you to some of the extraordinary artefacts produced with incredible skill by the different peoples of the Andes displayed in the exhibition. She will focus on the magnificent textiles drawn from both the British Museum, and collections in Peru and beyond. 

​Helen Wolfe will end with a brief overview of the British Museum collection of Early Andean textiles, numbering over 1,000 pieces. This event is free for OATG members and a very reasonable £3 for non-members, payable via our PayPal account. For more details and registration please click here.

Don’t forget to let me know of any textile-related events or articles you think I should include here!

Textiles of the Philippines, Scotland, Austria, India and more….

Sad to hear of the death at 93 years old on Friday of Suraiya Hasan Bose. Suraiya was small in stature, but a powerhouse when it came to reviving many Indian textile traditions.

She was born in Hyderabad and studied textiles for one year at Cambridge University before returning to India where she worked closely with the Handloom and Handicrafts Export Association. She was heavily involved in reviving heritage fabrics such as himroo brocade, mashru and telia rumal. I’ve blogged previously about her work with kantha – the subject of the documentary Threads. I really enjoyed this article, based on an interview with Radhika Singh, the author of Suraiya Hasan Bose: Weaving A Legacy.

Now to a part of Asia I’ve rarely mentioned in previous blogs. HABI The Philippines Textile Council was established in 2009 and “sees as its mission the preservation, promotion, and enhancement of Philippine textiles through education, communication and research using public and private sources.”

They will be hosting three free online events under the heading Textiles and Identity. The first of these is tomorrow evening, 8 September at 17:00 PHT, which is 10:00 BST. The panellists will discuss Textiles woven through Culture and the Filipino identity. The second event is on 15 September at the same time, with the topic under discussion being The Journey of Textiles in Southeast Asia. One of the panellists for this event is OATG member Dr Mariah Waworuntu.

Also on the subject of Filipino textiles, this Friday, 10 September 2021 there will be an online screening of a documentary about the textiles of Panay Island, in the Western Visayas. The weavers here mainly use natural fibres. These include fibres extracted from the leaves of the red Bisaya pineapple plant, piña. Weaving is a part of life here. “The documentary surveys the making of piña and cotton textiles from plant to finished product – traditional clothing for special occasions and everyday wear – and the embroidery of the upland Panay Bukidnon.” This documentary was produced for a virtual conference which took place at SOAS, London in 2020. Register here to watch it.

This Thursday sees the start of an online course looking at Mayan textiles at the Penn Museum in Philadelphia. Classes will be held weekly from 18:30-20:00 ET, which is 23:30-01:00 BST so clearly unsuitable for our UK members.

“Maya weavers use the backstrap loom to create beautiful, colorful textiles that express their social and aesthetic traditions, as well as their individual creativity and contemporary fashions. Join us as we explore the roots and meanings of this living tradition through five weekly interactive conversations, beginning September 9 and concluding October 7. We will cover the history, materials, techniques, and woven symbols of this ever-evolving art form, and participants will be treated to a demonstration by a master weaver. Expert lecturers will use textile samples from the Penn Museum, Friends of the Ixchel Museum, the Museo Ixchel del Traje Indígena, and private collections to bring lessons to life in each virtual class.” – Penn Museum website.

The recording of our most recent event, a talk by Dr Dorothy Armstrong on Mrs Beattie and Mr Getty: A carpet controversy, is now available for members. This was yet another extremely successful and well-attended event organised by our events team. Don’t forget to respond to your invitation to our upcoming Show and Tell. We are really looking forward to seeing what textiles OATG members have to show us.

Our journal editor, Gavin Strachan, has alerted me to this series of events celebrating Scotland’s first Flax and Linen Festival. Many of them are in-person, but this Zoom Roundtable stood out for those living farther away. Think Global, Grow Local: A Flax and Linen Festival Roundtable takes place on Thursday 9 September at 14:00-16:00 BST.

“In the early 1950s, Berta Pumberger-Windhager married her husband in a tiny Austrian village. Following the local tradition, Berta brought two chests with her to her new home. One was filled with woven linen, and one was full of unspun flax. In some parts of Europe, this was a common dowry. The chests enabled women to dress their households, and even more importantly, flax and linen were of great value. This fiber belonged to the woman alone and served as an insurance policy for whatever life might bring. By the time Berta received her chests, the custom was more symbolic. The necessity to spin and weave for loved ones no longer existed. Nevertheless, Berta treasured the flax and linen. Until her death, she made sure that the fabric and fibers where dry and neatly tucked away.” – Spin-Off Magazine. Christiane Seufferlein acquired these trunks through Berta’s son, and set about sending hanks of the processed flax to people all over the world. She soon ran out of flax from the original trunks, but more was then supplied by other Austrians who had been storing it for many years. Christiane is just one of the speakers at this roundtable.

I’m always looking for new material for this blog, so do let me know if you are aware of a textile-related event.

More online talks and an exhibition….

OATG members who were unable to attend the recent talk by Nick Fielding – or indeed those who would like to see it again – will be pleased to hear that a recording of this has now been added to our website. Simply go to Events Programme – Online Events – and then enter the password for 2020. This is shown on the inside back cover of our Asian Textiles journal, or contact any committee member for details. A digital copy of the December Lockdown Newsletter has also been added under the Journals section of the website, and again you will need the password to access this.

A reminder of two talks taking place this Saturday 9th January. The first is organised by the Textile Museum, Washington and features Sylvia Fraser-Lu on Burman Textiles. For full details see my blog of 23rd December. Click here to register.

The second event is hosted by the Textile Museum Associates of Southern California. Craig Diamond will speak on two types of textiles from Mindanao in the Philippines. See my blog of 18th August for a video of Craig talking about these warp ikat cloths known as T’nalak and woven by the Tboli people from banana fibre. Click here to register for this free event.

On Saturday 23rd January Ann Marie Moeller will discuss Small Japanese Treasures from the Lloyd Cotsen Collection at the Textile Museum. Click here for full details and how to register for this free talk.

Artist Unknown (Chancay or Rimac, central coast Peru); Panel with crowned figures bearing staffs; Fowler Museum at UCLA, X65.8730; Gift of the Wellcome Trust

On Monday 25th January the Fowler Museum in Los Angeles will be hosting a short online talk by Elena Phipps on the subject of a Peruvian cloth woven with four selvedges. This is part of their Lunch & Learn series, but it will be at 8pm in the UK.

Don’t forget we have our own AGM on Saturday 30th January. The formal part of the meeting will be followed by a short Show and Tell of textiles from members’ collections. This is the first time we will have held this event online, so we are seizing this opportunity to invite our overseas members to present one of their textiles. We look forward to “virtually” meeting you all.

Lama’s ceremonial hat, Tibet, early 20th century. ©Matthew Hillman.

Finally I enjoyed many of the images in this online exhibition about headwear. Curated by Stacey W. Miller, The Global Language of Headwear: Cultural Identity, Rites of Passage, and Spirituality has wonderful examples of headwear from across the globe. This exhibition should have currently been touring several museums in the US. As that has not been possible it has instead been made available online. Several of the images are accompanied by short videos, providing more information about how and when the hats were worn.

Exhibition: Piña-Seda – Pineapple and Silk Cloth from the Tropics

Exhibition dates: 24 October – 22 November 2017

Learn the history behind the famous cloth used for the Philippine national dress, and the art of its intricate and delicate designs.

The Philippine Embassy in London is currently showing a month-long textile exhibition, entitled PIŇA-SEDA (Pineapple and Silk Cloth from the Tropics), a Hibla ang Lahing Filipino Travelling Exhibition, featuring the Kalibo Aklan Piňa-Seda Weavers and the Lumban, Laguna Piňa-Seda Embroiderers.

This is the first international exhibition developed by the National Museum of the Philippines to promote traditional fabrics from the Philippines. It comprises 12 handmade pineapple and silk textiles, an Aklan foot loom, 8 embroidery samplers, 2 herbarium specimens and 50 associated weaving implements and materials brought from the Philippines. Complementing them are illustrations and texts to convey the uniqueness and intricacy of these revered heritage material used in formal wear.

The exhibition is being held in the exhibition halls of the Philippine Embassy, 10 Suffolk Street, London, SW1Y 4HG.

For more information, contact events@philemb.co.uk or write to Ms. Tess Albano at the Philippine Embassy, mtjalbano@philemb.co.uk