Blog

On a recent return visit to Namibia my husband Neil and I were lucky enough to visit an extremely remote area in the northeast of the country, where a group of Ju/’hoan San Bushmen are still able to live a semi-traditional life. This is now very rare as most groups live on land where hunting is not allowed and their traditions are dying.

Two women from among the Ju/’hoan San Bushmen in Namibia preparing ostrich shells for making them into jewelry. Photograph by Ann Cable.

Empire-style dress, early 19th century, recently donated to the TRC (2022.3163).Last week an interesting donation was brought to the TRC by Liesbeth Hesselink. She described it as some of the clothing that was worn by her grandmother, Quirina Cornelia Jacoba Böhtlingk, née Baning (1886-1984), when she lived in the Dutch East Indies / Indonesia with her husband, between 1914 and 1921. The donation consists of several white cotton blouses of Indonesian origin, and another made of white silk, as well as a long, hand-sewn white cotton dress.

This white dress (TRC 2022.3163) was described by Ms Hesselink as a plain underdress, but Gillian and I were uncertain due to the high position of the waistline. If this dress was worn underneath a dress typical of the 1910s or 1920s (with a low waistline), then the waistline seam would cut uncomfortably across the chest.

We therefore started to think this dress may be older than we first thought. The waistline sits only a few centimetres below the hem of the neckline, and this corresponds to a French fashion style known as an “Empire silhouette”, which was popular from around 1800-1815 after the French Revolution of 1789.

It's only Tuesday and I am already feeling tired, but at the same time excited and inspired! Yesterday David and Bonnie Smith popped in on their way home from Georgia. Earlier in the year they donated their extensive collection of Albanian, Georgian and other textiles and garments to come to the TRC. We spent a very busy six months getting all of the items catalogued, photographed and online. There were numerous blogs about these pieces and their meaning for the TRC.

Bonnie and David Smith, with Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood in the middle, TRC, 8 November 2022.

On 1 and 2 November, the TRC Leiden hosted Acesso Cultura Director, Maria Vlachou, as part of our Erasmus+ accreditation project. Acesso Cultura is based in Lisbon, Portugal. Its mission is to promote physical, social and intellectual access to cultural projects.

Maria Linkogle (left), TRC Leiden, and Maria Vlachou (right), Accesso Cultura, Lisbon.The possibilities to host experts from other EU countries is a new aspect of the Erasmus+ mobility programme for adult education, of which the TRC is now a sponsored partner. The TRC invited Ms Vlachou to show our facilities, because what we do is so intricately based on our collection of over 40,000 textiles and large textile library. In order to truly help us, she needed to see our facilities and learn how we work, first hand.

Ms. Vlachou was specifically invited to help us with our goal to increase diversity and inclusivity at the TRC Leiden, both to teach and to learn. One way we have been working on this is through contacs with various diasporic groups in the Netherlands and others with specific interests aand knowledge.

Cotton, hand-resist dyed blanket from Flores, Indonesia (TRC 2007.0636).A blanket can seem a mundane article, designed solely to keep us warm. The TRC has numerous blankets in its collection, including a patterned Baluchi blanket (TRC 2001.0061) from Iran, a red felted blanket from the Netherlands (TRC 2007.0384) and an ikat blanket from Indonesia (TRC 2007.0636). These examples don’t include the dozens of Americans quilts, whose functional purpose is often overlooked today.

But blankets also have a symbolic function. “In the Coast Salish tradition, blankets are gifted to uplift the spirit, to honour the strong or to protect the vulnerable,” Canadian artist Cary Newman explained. The Coast Salish are a diverse group of indigenous people who live in Pacific Northwest of Canada and the US.

Addoley Dzegede.As part of strengthening the position of the TRC as a hub for textile studies and technical skills the TRC has started a new rubric and display theme – namely the ‘TRC Spotlight’. This is a means of highlighting a particular textile, technique or textile artist/craft person.

We are using part of the workroom for this display and it includes a dedicated showcase and various panels to spotlight different stories and themes. Each display will be on view for up to two months. There will also be a digital version that can be enjoyed by a wider audience online.

The first TRC Spotlight pays attention to the American-Ghanian textile artist, Addoley Dzegede, who recently presented at the TRC several workshops and lectures about West African wax resist techniques. Various examples of Addoley’s work are currently on display.

For many years there has been a textile market along the banks of the Rijn (Rhine) here in the historic centre of Leiden. It is held twice a year and there are about forty stalls of varying sizes selling a wide range of cloth, knitting yarns, as well as haberdashery in the form of needles, pins, threads, buttons and zips.

The market did not take place during the various covid lockdowns and I did miss it! Today (Sunday 30th October) it was there again! The weather was glorious and all the cafes along the river were open so it was possible to order tea, coffee and an appelgebak (apple tart), and sit by the waterside surrounded by textiles. Bliss.

The Leiden Stoffenmarkt, 30 October 2022

Volume 1: Encyclopedia of Embroidery from the Arab World.I thought you might be interested in having an update on the Bloomsbury World Encyclopaedia of Embroidery series, which is based at the TRC Leiden and uses a growing number of examples from the TRC Collection for research and illustrative purposes. Outside support for the work involved in these volumes is increasing and coming from both official and ‘ordinary’ sources, making this a unique reference series.

Volume 1: Encyclopedia of Embroidery from the Arab World came out in 2016 and looks at embroidery from Morocco to the Arabian Peninsula and Iraq. This book won three international awards, including the prestigious Dartmouth Medal (2017), which is organised by the American Library Association. As pointed out by Widad Kawar (Amman), one of the Grand Dames of Palestinian and related textiles and garments, it is also the first Middle Eastern embroidery book to have a piece of Jordanian embroidery on its cover.