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The Lodewijkskerk in Leiden used to be the centre ('saai-hal') for the trade in saai cloth.The historic city of Leiden has long been known for the production of various types of woollen and worsted textiles, including laken (broadcloth), baai (baize), saai (combed wool), satin, grein (goat or sheep's hair/wool worsted cloth) and serge (twill), as well as soft fluffy blankets (deken).

Not so surprising therefore that the TRC in Leiden is actively working with Dutch textile and costume historian Jankees Goud (Atelier Dracht), Frank Gardiner (Amsterdam) and others to expand its reference collection of textiles that reflects these technical types and forms (always of interest to the TRC) and the textile history of Leiden in general.

This reference collection will eventually cover the wide range of textile types (woven, printed, embroidered, laces, etc) associated with Dutch regional dress. It will also 'underpin' a TRC research project into the Leiden textile production throughout the centuries, with a special emphasis on technical aspects, such as the fibres, their spin, the weaving, the dyes, further processing, etc.

I came across a curious piece of press photography when exploring the TRC’s online archive. The image shows five German prisoners of war from the First World War participating in a spot of needlework whilst a crowd of spectators, also POWs, gather around in fascination, peering over each other’s shoulders to watch the exercise.

'The treatment of German wounded: Exercising the muscles of the arms by means of embroidery.' The Manchester Guardian 1915. (TRC 2021.1342).

This lovely cloth, TRC 2021.2068, was recently acquired by the TRC in Leiden. It came with a label: ‘19th- Cyprus – Italian influence’. Research in books and on the internet helped me to find more background information.

Ill. 1. Tasseled short edge of Lefkara lace cloth from Cyprus, 19th century (TRC 2021.2068). In the centre is the insert between the two lengths that make up the complete cloth

Recently, the TRC Library received a special gift from Sytske Wijnsma in the small town of Wormer, in the northwest of the Netherlands, who on previous occasions has given other items to the TRC (click here).

Title page of Paulus Fürst's embroidery model book (Nuremberg 1666).

The donation is that of an original, seventeenth century pattern book that was specifically published for embroideresses, and it contains embroidery charts that were designed by a woman who is named in the text. The frontispiece of the booklet (see illustration below) also has a distinctly ‘feminine touch’, showing a domestic scene with five women doing their needlework, and who are being spied upon by two men, one of them half hiding behind the curtains.

I am pleased to announce that a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is being signed between the Textile Department, Osnabrück University, Germany, and the TRC Leiden. Over the next few years we are going to work together on a variety of projects, and the first one changed today from being ‘a plan’ to an actual happening!

 For sometime now, Prof. Bärbel Schmidt (Osnabrück University) and myself have been talking about some of her BA textile students working together on a collection of Dutch and German regional dress from the TRC Collection. The aim is for the students to help with the identification of the garments, using them as a source of inspiration and then making a booklet and online exhibition about their experience, research and creations. This work is being supported by a grant from the Lower Saxony Ministry for Science and Culture for the development of Dutch-German cultural relationships..

Delegation from Osnabrück borrows garments from the TRC for further study by students of Osnabrück University.The main problem, however, was the corona crisis, which meant that the students could not come to Leiden to work on a selection of garments. So Prof. Schmidt and her colleagues, Lucia Schwalenberg, came to Leiden last week to discuss the project and to pick out a range of objects that could be borrowed and taken back to Germany for a couple of months. Around the same time, I had an online meeting with some of the Osnabrück students to discuss the work of the TRC and to explain the project and what was being expected.

Eventually, eight garments of regional dress from Germany and eight pieces from the Netherlands were selected, including caps (for men and women), shawls, bodices, aprons, skirts, etc. These items will be examined at the University under the supervision of various staff members. This is an experiment for both institutes as normally objects do not leave museums’ collections, or in this case the TRC building, unless it is for a loan to another research institute, but given the current crisis, flexible solutions have to be found.

Chota (tea cosy) from 1950s India, sold locally by the London Missionary Society (TRC 2020.3740a).When I was clearing out my mother’s house some time ago, I found several items which I subsequently donated to the TRC. Many of these came from India where we lived in the late 1950s, as my father was a senior British diplomat. A couple of these items got me reminiscing about certain meals there.

The first are items TRC 2020.3740a and 3740b, labelled as a chota set. What is a chota set? It comprises a tea cosy cover and a tray cloth and was used for chota hazri which literally translates as ‘little presence’ but was always known as little breakfast. In the heat of India, the best time to exercise was in the early morning, so just after dawn my father and I would receive little breakfast on a tray in bed. It consisted of tea with imported powdered milk (an acquired taste) and toast, with possibly some mango or papaya.

by Erica Prus, Central St Martins, University of the Arts, London

After studying a fashion BA for three years (I’m now in my final year), I would have expected to have a firm understanding of textiles by now: how they’re made, the infinite technologies behind their creation and the complex histories behind each woven and non-woven cloth. I decided to take the Intensive Textile Course (November 2021) taught by Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood at the Textile Research Centre (TRC) in Leiden and found out that my assumptions were completely wrong.

A medieval cotton textile produced in India for the Egyptian market. Qusair al-Qadim, Red Sea coast, Egypt, 14th century (TRC 2020.0239).I’ve been interested in archaeology and material culture for as long as I can remember. As a child, I would spend weekends in my father’s archive in London, where he collected and stored vernacular objects from different times and places. It was like magic to my child self and that feeling of awe when I’m in an archive environment and able to connect quietly with tangible historical objects has never left me. I’m not sure when, but sometime during my degree in fashion I decided I wanted to turn this curiosity into something more defining, somehow combining it with my degree and my interest in textiles, which led me to the TRC.

The Intensive Textiles Course was five days long and each day we focused on the compositional technologies that make up textiles. The concept of the course was to learn a skill each day in order to not actually make but conceptually create a full garment to wear on the Saturday after the course had finished, which was a clever way of deconstructing the complex processes that it takes to create any textile. We were not actually producing garments but rather intimately studying what makes them, whilst constantly testing and questioning the function of textiles, and seeing them not only as parts of garments, but rather as a whole universe of woven anthropologies.

In May 2020 the TRC Leiden was contacted by the well-known New York publishing firm of Assouline, about a planned book on the various crafts of Saudi Arabia.

The book was being organised by the Ministry of Culture of Saudi Arabia and was intended as a present for visiting heads-of-state to the 15th meeting of the Group of Twenty (G20), 21-22 November 2020 (that was only one year ago, but it seems so much longer).

“Crafts of the Kingdom: Culture & Creativity in Saudi Arabia”, published by Assouline in New York (2020) on the occasion of the (online) G20-meeting in Saudi Arabia, in November 2020. The textile on the front of the cover is from the TRC Collection (TRC 2005.0127).