Blog

Nigar Shukri and Maryan Koehler dressed in Kurdish clothing from the area of Urmieh, northwestern Iran (1974 or 1975).On Tuesday, 20th August 2019, Gillian Vogelsang wrote:

Two boxes arrived last Friday (16th August 2019) from the USA, with some very different stories. The first box contained a small group of Iranian and Afghan garments that date from 1972-1975 (TRC 2019.1853a-1867). They were donated by Maryan Koehler. Some pieces were actually worn by Maryan at the time, while others were given to her when she worked in the country. More specifically, she was with the US Peace Corps teaching at the University of Isfahan, and between 1973 and 1975 she was at what was then called the Rezaiyeh College of Agriculture (now called Urmia University, in the northwest of the country) as a professor of English.

Maryan Koehler sometimes dressed in Kurdish clothing from the area. The Kurdish garments were given to her by her friend Nigar Shukri. Maryan Koehler is now tidying up and has been looking for a suitable home for her items. After looking on the internet she felt that the TRC Leiden understood these pieces and would make them available to a wide public.

Detail of a hand-embroidered huipil from Guatemala (Knobler donation).

The second group of textiles (TRC 2019.1837-1849) helps to fill a ‘gap’ in the TRC Collection. Thanks to the generosity of Chuck and Carolyn Knobler, USA, we have been given a selection of huipil (women’s tops) and a shawl from Guatemala and Mexico. Most of these pieces date to the latter half of the 20th century and are made from locally woven cloth (back strap looms).They are decorated in a variety of techniques and styles, including woven and embroidered forms. Some of the embroidered examples will be used in a future publication about hand embroidery from the Americas.

One of the outfits designed and made by Kate Askham, final year fashion show, Manchester 2019.Where has the year gone? I look back on my time at the TRC (together with Kazna Asker) with such fondness and am so grateful for the way it shaped my studying this past year. It's been about two weeks since I graduated, which feels extremely surreal and I am now looking for employment, still in glorious Manchester.

I wanted to share with you some photos of my final collection (see here), which I ended up basing around my family living in Glasgow and Iceland during the sixties and seventies. At the very core of my research and design, was a deliberate selection of the fabric and the sourcing of the material.

I made the very first garment of my fashion show presentation with some beautiful black silk-satin that the TRC gave to me, and it set the tone for the rest of my collection entirely. I also used by-product and ethically tanned leather, which I sourced from a British warehouse. The leather I decided to use were all end-of-line pieces, so I was really pleased to give them a new lease of life.

I used only natural fibres, and I carefully selected companies that have sustainability as their key focus. Amazingly, every single piece of my collection was thus made from by-products, surplus or recycled fibres and fabric - thanks to how much the TRC taught me about fibre types, material qualities and why it's worth spending the extra time and care, in order to use something in a responsible manner.

I'm now looking at moving into product development, which will hopefully take me all around the world, and enable me to assist design teams to focus on details, sourcing of fabrics, and finding suitable ateliers with expertise to create beautiful clothes. I think within the next six months I will be in London, and am hoping to work with my tutor Kiran Gobin, who suggested I could perhaps work in his design team. I am also wanting to do some further study eventually, and some more academic writing because I so enjoyed writing my dissertation - I am so eager to be challenged.

I'd love to come and visit you all again, and see what's going on there. Thank you again for such a wonderful experience. I realise how lucky I was to get such an insight, especially at a point where I was struggling to see the value of what I was studying! It was completely eye-opening and the TRC encouraged me to being curious again.

Please give my best wishes to everyone at the TRC and all those I met there!

KINDEST regards, Kate Askham

The London based firm of Hand & Lock has been producing embroideries for court and military uniforms, and diplomatic and religious garments, since 1767.

From their current premises at 86 Margaret Street, Fitzrovia, London, they are still actively involved in producing and teaching embroidery, especially with gold and silver thread.

To purchase this issue of Hand & Lock, please go to the attached web address.

Replicas of embroidered insignia of chivalric orders, made by Hand & Lock.On Tuesday, 6th August 2019, Gillian Vogelsang wrote:

Yesterday the TRC received a parcel from the embroidery firm of Hand & Lock. They have been based in London since the late 18th century and are a major force in the world of elite hand and machine embroidery.

For the last few years the TRC and Hand & Lock have been working together to support research into the history of embroidery and as part of this co-operation they donated various embroidered British insignia, to be used in Volume 3 of the Encyclopedia of Embroidery, which is being published by Bloomsbury, London.

Four of the insignia are replicas of the insignia worn by the British admiral, Horatio Nelson (1758-1805), who died at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. The Orders are:

The Order of St. Joachim (top left) was instituted in 1755 by a group of German nobles, in order to promote religious tolerance in Europe. Horatio Nelson accepted the Grand Cross of the Order in 1802. The insignia of the Order is made of gold and silver metal thread with a silk embroidered centre on white raycott. It is surrounded by a raised green velvet garter with gold smooth purl lettering edged with gold pearl purl. The four points of the cross are worked with silver spangles caught down with silver rough purl.

The Most Honourable Order of the Bath (top centre) was instituted in 1725 by King George I of the United Kingdom. The insignia of this Order has a central crest that depicts three crowns in gold and silver wire embroidery, which is surrounded by a raised red velvet garter with gold wire lettering.

Rear-Admiral Horatio Nelson (1758-1805), by Lemuel Francis Abbott (1799). He is wearing, among others, the insignia of the Order of the Crescent; the Order of Saint Ferdinand and Merit; and the Order of the Bath (National Maritime Museum Greenwich).The Order of the Crescent (middle left) was instituted by the Ottoman sultan, Selim III, to honour Horatio Nelson for his defeat of the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile (1798). The insignia was worn by high ranking officers and others involved in the Napoleonic Wars. It has a raised midnight blue velvet centre depicting a silver plaited embroidered star and crescent moon. The surround is edged with gold wire. In the most recent issue of the Hand & Lock journal (summer 2019), Alice Murrell has writtten a short paper on the Order of the Crescent.

The Order of St. Ferdinand and of Merit (middle centre) was instituted in 1800 by the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The insignia of the Order is made with gold and silver metal thread with a silk embroidered centre depicting St. Ferdinand in a blue and white silk cloak and clutching a silver wire sword. The surrounding points of the crest features silver spangles.

In addition, Hand & Lock kindly donated a badge for a Royal Postillion (middle right), the man who rides or walks with one or more horses pulling royal carriages or the hearse during state funerals. The badge is normally worn on the left sleeve. Also included in the parcel from Hand & Lock was a military cap badge (bottom).

On Tuesday, 30th July 2019, Gillian Vogelsang wrote:

Last Sunday we visited the Holocaust Museum (Yad Vashem), a moving experience because it was so personal. It was about a generation and more of people who vanished. Many of the chronological themes were explained via objects such as photographs, travel documents, letters, a battered watch or a broken toothbrush. Other stories were told via garments, such as a blouse taken from a mound that was recognised as having belonged to a friend and neighbour, a pit full of shoes, yellow Stars of David, and most telling, the blue and white striped garments worn in the camps. This museum really shows how clothing can be used to tell hard stories and pass on messages and emotions.

Street scene in the Jerusalem bazaar, 29 July 2019. Photograph Willem Vogelsang.On Monday, 29th July, Gillian Vogelsang wrote from Jerusalem:

The last two weeks have been quite a time, both at the TRC Leiden itself and for myself. It has included the Out of Asia programme in Leiden, between 14 and 19 July. A few days later I took part in a symposium at Leicester University about science and archaeological/historical textiles, and now with Willem we have a few days in the old city of Jerusalem (a holiday, of sorts).

A theme of all these events, which became clear to me the last few days, has been the passing down of knowledge and community identity through crafts, rather than solely by the written word (a skill that was long in the hands of a few, elite men).

It has left me a little sad, as it is clear that conflicts, changes in communication (spending time on telephones and watching tv), technology (computer driven machines) and that dreaded word globalization have broken the lineage of generations of craft knowledge, which will never come back.

Opening of the Out of Asia exhibition, TRC, 14th July 2019. Photograph: Willem Vogelsang.On Sunday, 21st July, Gillian Vogelsang wrote:

Last week Sunday (14th July 2019) saw the opening of the TRC exhibition: Out of Asia: 2000 Years of  Textiles a pop-up exhibition that was set up to coincide with  the massive International Convention of Asia Scholars in Leiden (co-organised by the International Institute for Asian Studies) and which had as its theme: Asia and Europe, Asia in Europe.

Over fifty people came to the opening of the TRC exhibition. I gave a lecture about ancient and modern textile contacts between Asia and Europe, and about the so-called Silk Roads that led from China, through Central Asia to the Middle East and on to Europe. And of course, in some cases in the opposite direction. But not only items were transported along the Silk Roads, but they also moved from India in all directions of the compass and were often transported along many maritime trade routes. Think of chintz and Kashmir shawls, and of course, the Paisley motif (buteh) that originated in India.

In 2018 we had the pleasure of welcoming Kazna Asker (Manchester) at the TRC for a two-month work placement - she worked with the TRC Yemen collection, learning about textiles in general, while having time to think hard about fashion, textiles and how she wanted to approach fashion designing.