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INDULGE textiles to buy, collect or simply admire 15 Thank you note Polly Leonardponderstheimportanceofapropercomposedthankyou letter... andpicksahandful offestivegiftideasthatwillinspireeventh etardiest ofrecipients toputpentopaper 76 Animal husbandry Stephanie Housley creates Coral and T usk creatures Wefindoutwhatinspires thefounderofthiscompany.Seethematwww.selvedge.org
CONCEPT textiles in fine art 36 Network coverage Tamar Frank moves through space ProfessorofTextileCulture,LesleyMillar tracestheoriginofherlatestexhibition,‘LostinLace’andtheartistsitfeatures 48 The Glory of Spanish Dress Joaquín Sorolla Bastida’s paintings of regional costume Sorolla’swork isnowthesubjectofanexhibitionorganisedbyfashiondesignerOscardelaRenta 66 Block party Corinne Julius pieces together Lucy Orta’s ideas about pattern Atravellingexhibition fromtheCraftsCouncilofartistsanddesignerswhoputpatternatthefrontoftheirpractice 71 COVER STORY Wear and tear Manon Gignoux frees textiles from the past Paleandinteresting, Manonlookstothepasttocreatehersculpturalandwearablepieces
INDUSTRY from craft to commerce 40 COVER STORY Nottingham lace A tale of a mechanically twisted textile NicolaDonovanlooks backatanoccasionallyneglectedfabricandthetechnologicalprogressitrepresents 56 Welsh knitting assembly Professor Moira Vincentelli examines this integral part of W elsh culture and how it was captured in a painting by William Dyce 73 Design File Knoll textiles GermanimmigrantHansKnollfoundsuccesswhenhejoinedforces withFlorenceSchust.TogethertheylaunchedKnollTextilesandmadeKnollahouseholdnameand abywordforcorporatestyle 96 Tread softly The history of snow shoes GrainneMckennatracksthesebeautifuland ingenious shoesfromtheirinventionbyNativeAmericanstotheiradoptionbytheCanadianmilitary
GLOBAL 21 Creative accounting The antique filing system of the Nordic Museum Beth Smithdelves into thetextilearchivesofthisScandinavianmuseumanddiscoversbeautifulr ecord cards hand-paintedbyEmelievonWaltersdorff
ANECDOTE textiles that touch our lives 32 COVER STORY The Art of Fine Linen The History of T rousseau An editedextractfrom FrançoisdeBonneville’sseminaltext‘TheBookofFineLinen’ 63 War on waste Swiss army blankets have a strange history and a bright future A look at the revivalandreuseofthesestylishbututilitarianblankets 65 Fabric swatch No. 7: Butter Muslin Sarah Jane Downing discovers a darker use for this traditional pudding wrapping. IllustratedbyAnneSmith
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Ice maiden ECHO THE FROST AND SNOW IN LAYERS OF SILK AND LACE
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IMAGES BY CARL BENGTSSON
Satin strapless dress, damask coat with satin bo w Sassi Hoiford. Sheepskin wrap, Celtic Sheepskin
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The Art of Fine Linen
THE HISTORY OF THE TROUSSEAU
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What did the young princess Isabelle of France in 1397 have in common with a humble city girl in the year 1910? Nothing other than the eternal thread of their trousseaux, containing similar pieces of cloth used for similar daily acts in nearly comparable proportions, but separated by a period of over five hundred years.
Isabelle of France received her trousseau at the age of seventeen, when she was promised in marriage to Richard II of England. It contained 14 pairs of sheets, a dozen large cloths, two dozen smaller cloths, and several coloured bedspreads in velvet and satin. The list ended with the touching addition of a few dolls. Five hundred years later, the typical trousseau advocated by a Parisian department store like Au Bon Marché included six pairs of sheets, two dozen pillowcases, three dozen table napkins, three tablecloths (two with matching napki ns), a complete damask table setting for twelve, two dozen dishtowels, a dozen hand towels, two dozen bath towels, and six aprons.
Today the word ‘trousseau,’ when used to refer to more than just the bride’s personal wardrobe, tends to evoke the traditional ceremony of preparing linen years in advance, embroidering and monogramming it with the future spouses’ initials. Linen was richly symbolic, conveying above all the wealth to be displayed before guests. This connotation took precedence and became a veritable institution in 19thcentury Europe, where it represented an exaggerated expression of the ascendant bourgeoisie. Michelle Perrot and Georges Ribeill have unearthed the private diary of Caroline Brame, a young Parisian aristocrat, who confessed in 1865 her sense of wonder before her friend’s wedding gifts and trousseau, “And I went to see the trousseau, which is truly magnificent. Above all there are embro idered lace handkerchiefs that are delightful... sheets adorned with truly lavish lace, a coverlet with her magnificent coat of arms, and an infinite number of small, charming details.”
Bourgeois European society even set up ‘trousseau funds’ to enable the poorest of girls to have some household linen when they married; the girls would contribute half a franc a month from age eight to twenty-one; they were then entitled to six sheets, six pillowcases, twelve dish towels, twelve hand towels, twelve bath towels, a complete table setting, and a few items of personal clothing – a list which, these days, hardly seems impoverished. Whether humble or extravagant, the trousseau was always brought by the bride and generally remained her property in case of widowhood or remarriage.
Among affluent town-dwellers, the trousseau represented five per cent of the total dowry. Items of linen in ‘rich’ trousseau were counted by ‘twelve dozens,’ and in moremodest cases by ‘three dozens’ even though, in principle, more frequent washing days, in towns at least, no longer made such hoa rds necessary. But even though quantity was one of the signs of a ‘ric h’ trousseau, i t was above all t he quality of material and the decoration that justified the price. In terms of table linen
Portrait of his mother sewing, Alfred Smith (1851-1936) © RMN/H. Lewandowski Opposite The Linen Cupboard, Pieter de Hooch (1629-1684) © Rijkmuseum, Amsterdam
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a n e c d o t e the finest damask cloth came from Saxony or Armentières (northern France) after the decline of the Flemish textile centre of Courtrai following the French Revolution. As for sheets, apart from the fineness of the linen cloth, the most costly were thos e with no middle seam. But it was above all lace in sertions, which came back into fashion at the end of the First Napoleonic Empire (1804-1814), rivalling garlands of fancy needlework, intricate openwork and monograms, that pushed cost up.
In French cities, though some mothers continued to buy cloth by the meter into the late 19th century , and had their daughter’s linen embroidered by a linen maid or in certain convents, the Goncourt brothers commented in their Journal that “the most luxurious trousseaux of young women who bring 6,000 francs of dowry are made at Clairvaux [Abbey]. That’s the inside story on all fine things in society.” The appearance of department stores revolutionize purchasing habits. By the end of the 19th century, department stores had their ‘white goods’ floor or ‘trousseau counter’ where buyers would gather wide-eyed before displays that Balzac described as “commercial poetry.”
Carefully ironed and folded, selected and prepared with excitement, this celebrated trousseau contained undergarments, sheets and splendid table linen bent under a crush of lace flounces, embroidery and openwork; during and after the Second Empire, it was supposed to be displayed at the same time as the collection of personal gifts with which the groom inundated his betrothed – pearls, gems, small furnishings, boxes, lace furs, and all possible feminine frippery. The practice was progressively abandoned as far as the trousseau went, because this display of intimate items made modest brides blush.
The custom was also followed in rural ar eas, where it ac quired the stat us of a genuine rite. In the Orthe region, people observed a colourful custom called the passade. Before the wedding ceremony, the entire trousseau was carried from the bride’s home to that of the groom on a gaily-decorated cart. The ‘linen-bearing’ cart was bedecked with flowers and boughs, and pulled by two festooned cows covered with a striped cape. The linen was piled on the cart by the bridesmaids who then accompanied it, one carrying a broom (symbol of housewifely duty) and the other carrying a distaff (symbol of fertility). Thus adorned, the procession crossed the village, heralding the wedding, offering drinks and singing songs. When the procession arrived, the village priest blessed the cupboard and bed and the ceremony ended with a family meal at the future groom’s house. It was at about this time that “modern ways” put a slow end to the old custom of fathers planting a few acres of flax and hemp for their daughters, who would spin their own yarn at home or at traditional village gatherings. The balls of yarn would then be woven on the family loom or given to the village weaver.
Although the traditional refrains like “Sew, sew, sew my girl, for tomorrow you will be wed” were still sung in the 1950s, these days the concept of trousseau has become outmoded. Household linen is included in the wedding lists deposited at the department stores but most people view the acquisition of linen as a necessity rather than a pleasure. It is usually bought in small quantities, is often of poorish quality and has to be frequently replaced since it goes out of fashion just like everything else. Whether worn or not, used linen loses value and winds up being thrown away, whereas in the old days linen entered a whole cycle of diverse use.
When cloth in good condition became victim if a snag or was beginning to appear worn, it would be carefully mended or darned. When worn items contained sections in good condition, these would be cut out and reassembled in a patchwork, to be put to new uses. Finally, when linen was uniformly softened by years of use, it could still be used in the making of baby’s diapers or linen for the ill. Once unusable, even as a dustcloth, it could always be torn into the strips used for bandages right up to the First World War.
The consumer society put an end to this life-cycle, although economic recession and the ecol ogy movement have led to a r ethink. There se ems to be a change in attitudes, favouring the purchase of better quality goods that last longer. The January ‘white sales’, invented by department stores in the late 19th century to reinforce new linen buying habits, seem to be meeting with increased success. This has generated a trend toward linen-and-cotton or pure linen fabrics, as well a s growing sales of white and unbleached material, for the first time since the ar rival of colours and prints. Th e traditional trousseau, with its stocks of hou sehold linen designed to ‘last a l ifetime,’ however, has vanished forever, not only from closets but also from consciousness. The doors of those heavy cupboards remain shut in family residences where their contents of w hite linen with interlacing monograms-once the pride of the mistress of the house-has imperceptibly fall en to the status of unused, old-fashioned object, even in France. ••• An edited extract from The Book of Fine Linen, Francoise de Bonneville, ISBN-10: 2080135570, £35, Selvedge readers can purchase a copy for £30.50 (including uk p&p) by calling Littlehampton Book Services, T: 01903 828 503 and quoting reference sel/bfl. Offer is valid until 30 april 2012
THE BOOK OF
FINE LINEN
Françoise de Bonneville
Foreword by Marc Porthault
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Moira, Tamar Frank, Utrecht, Holland, 340 x 140 x 220 cm, Phophorescent threads
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TAMAR FRANK MOVES THROUGH SPACE
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I first encountered Dutch artist Tamar Frank’s work ‘Serena’ at Kantlijnen (The Face of Lace) in Bruges on a crystal clear , diamond brigh t, freezing day in January 2009. Both the description of the day and the word ‘encounter’ are deliberately chosen, for the work was in total darkness when I entered the room, slowly revealing itself over the time it took for me to orientate myself.
First a ghostly set of parabolic lines in space, which slowly changed from being ‘in space’ to ‘holding’ the space, as lights gently washed them with different colours, then disappearing when the cycle of light ended, and finally, as the eyes adjusted to the darkness re-appearing in their ghostly traces. It was in absolute contrast to the unambiguous clarity of the day outside and it was totally magical and mesmerising. It also keyed directly into ideas about space that I had been exploring for an exhibition.
Space surrounds us. We move through it and we portion it off with structures delineating boundaries and thresholds. Terence Riley, in Light Construction, writes of the wall as an interposed veil where those o utside are distanc ed from the space within, and those inside distanced from the world outside. I wanted to discover how textile structures could contribute to a material investigation of the ways in which we divide and negotiate space. In Tamar Frank I found an artist working with light and thread to describe the contours of space, both surrounding and occupying it in a manner allowing for passage and permeability.
Tamar Frank is an artist specialising in light works, specifically in relation to architecture. She is currently wor king on a light instal lation over the frontage of a 120m building in Vancouver. In many of her light installations it is the line o f light that is the central feature, as she maintains: “you always want to follow a line
Serena, Tamar Frank, Hospitaal Memling Museum, Bruges Belgium 4.3x16.3x30 m, Phophorescent threads because the line giv es direction.” A nd so working with thread i s a natural extension of her preoccupation with line. For her the thread is a line in space stretching out like a line of light, dividing the space and continuing, in our mind’s eye, beyond the borders. As she says, “the threads can go on forever , holding space.” After experimentation with var ious types of material she has settled on phosphorescent threads for her installations which she describes as appealing to “our visual perception when defining space and how we use lines and borders to guide us in our physical orientation. My installations all ow the viewer to undergo a process where at the beginning one can still recognize the existing boundaries but the space is then transformed into darkness leaving just the thin glowing lines to hold on to.” An afterglow which contains the emblematic traces of the movement of her body in space.
There is a wonderful dichotomy at the heart of her work: that the essential mystery is dependent on absolute mathematical precision. As creator of these works she has two distinct roles which echo this dichotomy . In one role she is the exacting architect/mechanic/electronic engineer who cannot deviate one centimetre from the plan or the installation will fail. In her other role she is the visionary artist who sees the relationship between the work, the space and the viewer as a mystical/spiritual experience.
As viewers we should only be aware of the effect: all distractions are removed in an attempt to achieve what she describes as “a pure form of seeing, allowing the mind to inform the eye” and as we look into the blackness the shapes slowly emerge, transforming our perception of the dark spaces. Such alchemy would not be possible without an excellent understanding of mathematics. Geometry is the tool
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Nottingham Lace A TALE OF A MECHANICALLY TWISTED TEXTILE
Once there was a thriving lace making industry and in and around the East Midlands city of Nottingham. It grew out of the stocki ng making industry and legend has it that on returning from an evening at the local alehouse, a stocking frame knitter blearily inspected the handmade lace trim o n his wife’s cap and set about replicating it on his own frame.
Nottingham Castle Museum and Galleries has a sample of one of these early pieces of net; the mesh is oversized and appears not dissimilar in structure to a piece of ble ached tripe. Our alternative folk hero’s moment of tripe replicating genius occurred in the second half of the 18th century and initiated a series of technological developments leading to the establishment of Nottingham as the centre of mechanized lace production and distribution.
The intention really was to replicate handmade bobbin lace rather than stomach tissue and so the arrival of Heathcote’s invention – a machine that could produce hexagonal, boun cy nets and, so the story goes, get him chased out of town by Luddites – set machine-made lace on the road to major commercial success.
Anyone who has made, or contemplated making, bobbin lace will ap preciate the downright cleverness of inventing a machine that can produce such delicate and complex fabr ics. But while Heathcote is recognized for his contribution to the development of machine lace, the icon of lace machinery is Levers, still in operation at Cluny Lace Co. Ltd – makers of lace
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in d u s t r y for Katherine Middleton’s wedding gown and owners of a mos t awe-inspiring feat o f engineering. The experience of witne ssing 17 tons of watchmaker grade components swing and twist miles of thread into perfect imitations of handmade bobbin net laces is one that comes highly recommended indeed.
Alas, it is not an experience that can be had here in Blighty because the lace industry in Nottingham and the rest of the UK was brought to its knees in the late 20th century by a diminishing demand for lace and overseas competitio n galvanized by cheap labour costs. And despite the contribution that the Nottingham lace industry in its glory years made to the economic landscape of Nottingham, evidence of its material presence is strangely absent.
Granted there are a few examples o f ‘ambient’ heritage – the naming of a district after its previous incarnation as the ‘La ce Market’ and the new contemporary art galler y is clad in a lace design discovered within a ti me capsule found buried beneath a High Street chain store.
There was a Museum of C ostume and Textiles in Nottingham that had a substantial collection of Nottingham lace. However, this closed several years ago, although a small quantity of Nottingham lace may be viewed at Nottingham Castle Museum and Galleries. No working machinery is on public view in Nottingham and fabulous examples of machine lace owned by the city, such as Battle of Britain panels are tucked away and sadly hidden from sight.
It seems that Nottingham is not very interested in its lace heritage, or that it is perhaps a little ashamed of its involvement in what was at times an exploitative and chauvinistic industry; there ar e still people 4
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