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Long-sleeved everyday blouse decorated with paisley motifs, Kihnu island, Estonia, early 21st century (TRC 2021.0408c).Kihnu island is a unique place, situated in the Baltic Sea along the western coast of  Estonia. Kihnu was described as having Europe’s last remaining matriarchal society and featured in a film and article by the BBC.

As part of the TRC’s current exhibition about the buteh, which is better known in the West as the paisley motif, we were given a woman’s daily outfit from Kihnu island, Estonia (click here). The donation was made by Merle Ernits, who is originally from Estonia but now lives in the Netherlands. The following description about Kihnu dress is written by Heidi Stanionyte, Merle Ernits’s daughter, who lives in Estonia.

Moroccan woman's kaftan made from a Japanese obi, 1950s (TRC 2001.0074).Contemplating the some 34,000 textiles in the TRC collection, Gillian Vogelsang, the TRC director, writes about the close relationship between historical and modern textile designs and production methods, and the ages-old, continuous and global process of adoption and adaption of forms, motifs and techniques.

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I am currently busy working on the Cuvelier collection of 20th century textiles – as mentioned in an earlier blog, this is a very large donation to the TRC of twentieth century, printed, woven and machine embroidered textiles that were collected by Prof. Yves Cuvilier (1913-2005). He was closely involved with the Parisian fashion industry in the decades after the Second World War. The textiles eventually came to the TRC Leiden via Pepin van Rooijen, the Amsterdam publishers.

I am just working on the Icelandic chapters of the Encyclopedia of World Embroidery, vol. 4: Scandinavia and Western Europe (Bloomsbury, London) and I thought people might enjoy trying out some Icelandic counted thread patterns. These are based on some patterns given in two manuscript pattern books (sjónabók) from the latter half of the eighteenth century, from southeastern Iceland.

Afternoon table cloth embroidered at Scapa Flow, Orkney Islands, Scotland, early 1940s (TRC 2021.1331).Today is the 5th May, Liberation Day in the Netherlands, so I was thinking what would be a suitable blog, and immediately thought about a recent donation to the TRC Collection. The gift, which arrived in the post a few weeks ago, consists of four embroidered afternoon table cloths, made from linen and cotton and embroidered with simple patterns of stylised flowers. The cloths were donated by Sharon Bruce from California, who happens to be the sister-in-law of Dale Gluckman from Los Angeles, who has been working with the TRC for many years.

Issue of the wartime journal Needle Woman and Needlecraft, No. 17, 1941 (TRC 2019.2155).

Some six months ago we published a blog about various types of face masks recently added to the TRC Collection as a reflection of dress and identity in the era of the covid-19 pandemic. Over the last few months we have been given more face masks of three very different types, with very different backgrounds.

Face mask with Christian symbols, used in one of the Eastern Orthodox Churches, early 2021 (TRC 2021.0621).

A woollen bernos from Debre Berh, central Ethiopia (TRC 2021.0814).On the 16th March 2021, I noted in a blog that: "...last Tuesday someone from Leiden came with an Ethiopian cape with, to my eyes, an unusual shape that could accommodate a rifle. A very practical garment!"

We have been doing some more research about this garment and this led to some interesting pieces of information. The garment is called a bernos, which is the same word as the Moroccan burnous, a large woollen cloak with a hood. It is worn by men from the highlands of Ethiopia and Eritrea.

The Ethiopian example now in the TRC collection (TRC 2021.0814) was bought by Mr. Polderman (Leiden) in the 1970’s, in Debre Berh, in the Shewa Province of central Ethiopia. It is made from a thick, woollen felt and has a red leather edging on the inside of the front and neck opening. There is also a line of embroidery just below the neck opening that is used to strengthen this area of the garment.

Man in market at Sololá, Guatemala (2007). Photograph by Caroline Stone.Guatemala is famous for its splendid textiles and for the traditional dress still worn by large numbers of indigenous women. Men adopted a version of Spanish regional costume shortly after the Conquest for a variety of reasons. More recently, they have tended to move on to modern Western dress, except in a few remote areas and for ceremonial occasions.

There are exceptions: for example, in Sololá some men wear jackets, essentially western in cut (TRC 2020.4573), and matching trousers of dark and richly coloured ikat (see the photograph of stall-holder in Sololá market). It is not clear how old this fashion is. Women’s clothing, on the other hand, still has close parallels with pre-Hispanic dress, as seen in paintings and statuettes, especially that worn for rituals connected with the cofradias or religious brotherhoods.

Women’s dress is generally untailored, based on rectangles, often woven by the woman herself on a back-strap loom and richly decorated with a number of techniques, including various types of brocading, soumak, ikat, as well as embroidery and appliqué, especially at the neck.

The world of textiles is sometimes mistakenly thought of as an all female realm. This is simply not the case. The TRC has many examples of textiles and accessories made and decorated by men. One such example is a small collection of Asafo flags from Ghana. The word Asafo comes from the words ‘sa’ (‘war’) and ‘fo’ (‘people’). Asafo flags represent different village male military companies. The Akan language of the Fante is rich in proverbs, and the images appliqued on Asafo flags often reflect this. Asafo refers to the military unit, while the flag itself is called ‘frank’ or ‘frankaa’.

Asafo flag from Ghana, mid-20th century (TRC 2015.0220).