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ContentsINDULGEtextilestobuy,collectorsimply admire 13 Dining out The long evolution of the tablecloth AneditedextractfromTheBookofFineLinen byFrancoiseDeBonnevilleandMarcPorthault18COVERSTORYTablemannersYou’llnevereatonthe run again. Founder Polly Leonard selects table linen that makes every mealtime an occasion. PhotographedbyKatyadeGrunwald 23 COVER STORY Full Moon Story Fashion photographer Kim Kyung Soo captures the essence of the traditional Korean Hanbok in a contemporary shoot

CONCEPT textiles in fine art 66 COVER STORY String section Liz Hoggard unravels the work of Chelsea School of Art graduate Maryrose Watson, whose ‘experiments with wrapping, overlapping and intersecting layers move her away from the “restrictions” of cloth as a functional product’

INDUSTRY from craft to commerce 40 COVER STORY Local delicacy Silk looms large in the history of Lyon. Genevieve Woods discovers how the fibre shaped a region of France IllustrationbyIngridMida 56 COVER STORY Learning curve Tamasyn Gambell’s work in progress DiscoverherworkandothersaspartoftheLondonDesignFestival,14-23September,www.londondesignfestival.com

GLOBAL 44 COVER STORY Southern charm Genevieve Woods finds a feast of fabrics from our French neighbours across the Channel Illustrated bySusyPilgrim-Waters 62 Minimal changes Ptolemy Mann’s in-depth review of Undiscovered Minimalism, a book that charts Parviz Tanavoli’s journey to the Mazandaran province of Northern Iran and his discovery of technically complex and dramatically coloured Gelim

COHABIT stunning interiors beautifully photographed 51 Walled garden Adelphi Paper Hangings tend to the patterns of the past by resurrecting traditional wood block printing WrittenbyRinneAllenandLucyA.Gillis 58 COVER STORY Joy to behold The decorative style of Kaffe Fasset BethSmithisupliftedbyKaffe’s irrepressible approachtoart,lifeandinteriordesigninhiscolourfulLondonhome

ANECDOTE textiles that touch our lives 54 Namesake The enduring tradition of monographs is traced from its Greek origins to the present day WrittenbyembroidererandtextiledesignconsultantVictoriaBain 73 Fabric Swatch No. 11: Toile de Jouy. Sarah Jane Downing reveals the technical innovations behind this quintessentially French fabric IllustratedbySusyPilgrimWaters 75 Canvas In a new feature Editor Beth Smith seeks answers to perennial fashion problems. This issue she asks if the demise of clear dress codes really makes life any easier? Visitthe Selvedgefacebookpagetoaddyouropinion, www.facebook.com/SelvedgeMag 76 Time and space Tamara Fogle keeps things in proportion CollectionsofVictorianpursesandvintage mannequinsfillherstudio:butamidthechaosTamaraFoglemakesherbagswithprecision

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Growing up in Mumbai, India Shilpa Chavan loved crowns; it didn’t matter if they were made from cardboard, precious metal or tree bark – the value isn’t always in the material. Now, under her own millinery label Little Shilpa, Chavan designs edgy, colourful headpieces that are innovative in both their type and technique.

Little Shilpa evokes Chavan’s childhood nickname and her hats have a playfully sophisticated quality, partly due to her energetic mix of materials with high and low value. Chavan regularly visits Mumbai’s markets sourcing unexpected treasures: neon pink toy figures, underwear, electric fan blades, military sidecaps, as well as coins and feathers. Inspired by the textiles and colours worn at festivals, she’ll buy traditional gold-metallic gauze ribbon and dyes it with layers of rich pigment. But she also finds ‘les objects trouvé’ and renders these found and discarded objects precious in a new context.

Chavan likes the challenge of creating a balanced dialogue between what she calls her ‘raw materials’ and the shapes that she builds from them. A stylist as well as a designer, she says that her creative eye lets her ‘tell a whole story’; she thinks in shapes so she can visualize the final look in a photographic frame. She drew on her dual disciplines as stylist and designer when she fashioned a collection for Headonism, the show of rising millinery stars curated by Stephen Jones during London Fashion Week. In a visual wink at the show’s title, Chavan draped her rectangular tables in Indian textiles and positioned her models underneath so their heads – and headpieces – appeared to grow organically from the cloth.

One striking shape in the collection was inspired by the enormous black-and-white hat designed by Cecil Beaton and worn by Audrey Hepburn in MyFairLady. Chavan interprets the Eliza-Doolittle-at-Ascot chapeau by shaping it as an oversized bow: she forms the loops from neon sky-blue perspex, the unfurling tails from dozens of colourful Indian bangles, suggesting both the graceful arms of India’s classical dance as well as ribbon. Chavan’s Headonismheadpieces also reflect the places – India and England – where she has both lived and studied, notably at Central Saint Martins and the London College of Fashion. In 2005 she interned with the renowned milliner Philip Treacy, who recalls Chavan as an ‘enthusiastic, talented and creative designer’. From Treacy, who created 36 headpieces for guests and family members at the recent royal wedding, Chavan took away a lesson that was not on her design-school curriculum: humility. “What was amazing to see was that someone could be so creative and famous and yet be so humble...” she recalls.

Chavan began working for Treacy in a whirlwind: ‘On Thursday I sent in my materials; on Friday I interviewed; and on Saturday I cancelled my flight to India so I could begin on Monday.’ Her flexibility has led to other creative boons. When she couldn’t bring her 4

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Local delicacy SILK LOOMS LARGE IN THE HISTORY OF LYON

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Silk: a fine, lustrous filament, wound around a silk worm, hiding it, like a secret. The Chinese had discovered this by the second millennium BC. They knew how to coax the moth eggs to grow into fat larvae that could produce this fantastic filament, one cocoon unravelling a continuous length of up to 900 metres, then twisting them into a thread to weave into a shimmering, light cloth. But the secret escaped, across Asia, to India and on to Persia, then with the help of Alexander the Great to a Europe desirous of this highly prized fabric traded along the ancient transcontinental trade route.

Our vocabulary reveals this initial contact – silk, sericulture, sericin – all words with Greek roots meaning ‘Chinese’. Eventually silk production began in Europe, and by the 11th and 12th centuries was concentrated in the city states of Italy, whose silk weavers supplied the rich and powerful with this rare and expensive fabric often decorated with gold and silver.

It was the French King François I (1494 –1547) who, in 1536, gave permission to two Piedmontese weavers to set up their looms and establish silk weaving in Lyon. He wanted a domestic supply of the luxury cloth for the French nobility and clergy, and to reduce his trade deficit from imported silk goods from Italy. In 1540 he granted a monopoly on silk production to the city of Lyon, and from this moment the history of the city’s textile industry became tied to silk weaving.

Silk shaped the city’s development and prosperity, its fortunes growing from this luxurious material, and later, the commerce in silk which brought global recognition. Through silk, Lyon achieved dominance and became France’s second city after Paris. This fine thread has given it a different historical experience from other towns associated with textile production in France, such as Rouen in the North and Lille in the North-East, whose economies were based respectively on wool and linen, and then cotton.

Lyon benefited from good geography. It lay on one of Europe’s natural crossroads, sitting at the confluence of the Saône and Rhône rivers. By the 16th century Lyon was an important hub with connections to Italy with its wealthy city states, to Paris, the Low Countries and southern Germany; and was on the trade route linking the Mediterranean coast to northern Europe. This excellent location meant that as early as the mid-15th century the city hosted four fairs a year and had an economy that revolved around weaving and banking. Much later in the 18th and 19th centuries a network of canals improved the reach of the natural waterways, consolidating Lyon’s position and improving transportation times.

King Henri IV (1589–1610) developed sericulture at the end of the 16th century by encouraging the planting of mulberry trees for silkworm raising, ensuring an adequate supply of raw silk for the Lyonnaise industry. It was in the Languedoc, Dauphiné and Provence regions to the south of Lyon, with their optimal climatic conditions, that plantations became established and sericulture developed.

In the pre-industrial period textiles were produced at the domestic level in independent ateliers, an activity that employed the greatest number of people after agriculture. Initially fabrics were plain weaves of one colour, but there were also ribbons, brocades,

taffetas and velvets produced. A number of allied activities of dyeing, embroidery and passementerie grew up around the weaving.

By 1554 the first controls on silk weaving were established in order to protect this burgeoning industry, introducing apprenticeships and making it difficult to leave the activity for fear of divulging the secrets of its manufacture. During the 17th century, Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619–1683), Minister of Finances under Louis XIV, was anxious to improve the state of the French economy, and introduced reforms to maximise national prosperity. His focus was on applying strict quality controls on all aspects of the cloth produced, and encouraging a rigid guild system that organised the master-weavers and their workers, both of whom were then dependent on the silk merchants.

It was the silk merchants who ordered and bought the silk from the master-weavers, and set the price for the cloth. By 1660 there were more than 3,000 master-weavers employing 10,000 workers: this rose to over 15,000 workers in the silk and associated industries by the late 18th century. More than one third of the population of Lyon was involved with silk in some way. The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 saw a substantial number of Protestant weavers flee Lyon for Switzerland, Germany, the Low Countries and England, where they made an important contribution to the textile industries in these countries, notably in cotton manufacture.

In the closing years of the 17th century and opening decades of the 18th, Lyon’s silk manufacturing slumped with the decrease in royal orders. This 4

s e l v e d g e . o r g astounding. Four inky chocolate-black stitched strips with the subtle lest abrash (the term used when the wool woven has been dyed in different lots creating variations in tone of a single colour) create a ground for six razor-thin slashes of cream wool, reminiscent of an Agnes Martin drawing. In contrast some of the horizontal stripe pieces positively sing with contrast and vibrancy. Lime greens vibrate against almost fluorescent pinks, interspersed by lavender and divided by a central band of coral-white stripes.

The darkest petrol-blue one can imagine is cut through by a hazy-edged knife of burnt orange. Rothko-esque in its intensity and darkness, this is serious art made by seriously skilled and clever women. When we study the photographs which show them at their work we see modest and thoughtful women, hair tucked away in a headscarf, deep in concentration, crude looms constructed from debris wood, dark rooms allowing in thin shafts of light.

It is hard in some ways to believe these pieces originate in such humble surroundings. A photograph shows a horse being led through the arid landscape, its back slung with a gelim; its stripe echoing the horizon behind it. Suddenly things make sense. These textiles are used and abstracted in and from the land, reflecting the archetypal mythology of the people who make them – in fact it’s a mythology we all share. We know they have never seen a Rothko or a Barnett Newman painting and yet they explore the same themes and their collective unconscious is the same – their medium is the difference. I doubt Rothko could have welded a shuttle so deftly. This book is a phenomenal homage to the Northern Iranian gelim. A weighty tome exquisitely printed; an artwork in its own right but it opens a door to something truly staggering, minimal and no longer undiscovered. Ptolemy Mann Undiscovered Minimalism: Gelims from Northern Iran, Parviz Tanavoli, Hali Publications for, Lawrence King ISBN: 978-1-89811376-8, £95.00

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Southern charm GENEVIEVE WOODS FINDS A FEAST OF FABRICS IN FRANCE

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Textiles form an important part of French cultural heritage and are housed in the many museums found around the country. For the “tissuphile” whose time is at a premium, to discover each one would be an extensive project. Focusing on the southern half of France, the Occitan region, offers delights enough for one trip.

Occitania, a linguistic and cultural concept that has existed since the Middle Ages, lifts the visitor from the north into a different world. This was the area of the Troubadours, the musician-poets who introduced themes of courtly love and chivalry into European literature. There are still half a million speakers of this language spread across the region which is dominated, at its centre, by the uplands of the Massif Central. It has mountains on its western and eastern edges, the prominent Rhône valley and two contrasting littorals, the Atlantic and Mediterranean. With mild winters and a summer climate that is hot and dry, Occitania’s scenery, villages and towns, odours, colours and history have offered inspiration to local artists and craftspeople.

The journey should start in Lyon. Although it lies just outside the Occitan region, its visual elements speak of the south. The vegetation changes as does the architecture, and the houses begin to take on the orange pantile roofs associated with the Mediterranean. Lyon was the one-time capital of Gaul; it is now considered the gastronomic capital of the nation. The city has one of the richest textile collections in the world, located down an unprepossessing narrow street in the Presqu'ile area formed by the confluence of the Rhône and Saône rivers. This is the Musée des Tissus with over two million pieces from both the eastern and western textile traditions, that holds examples spanning some 2000 years.

The city gained prominence from the silk industry which supplied France, Europe and beyond with sumptuous silks for interiors and clothing, see pg 40. Even today Hermès silk scarves are still made in Lyonnais factories. A visit to the

Soierie Vivante will bring to life the silk weaving traditions of the 19th century. It is located in the Croix-Rousse quarter, once an active weaving community, and now a UNESCO World Heritage site. In the same area is the Maison des Canuts demonstrating the use of a Jacquard loom, which was instrumental in improving the efficiency of silk production. “Canuts”, initially a perjorative term, was the name given to silk workers in the weaving shops.

Ribbons, fringes, braids, tassles, laces and other trimmings all fall under the French term “passementerie” and are created out of silk and cotton threads. Some of the finest examples are shot through with metallic strands. These ornamental elements grew as offshoots of Lyon’s silk industry. At Saint-Etienne, lying to the south-west of Lyon, they perfected weaving the short widths of trimming: it became known as the ribbon capital of France. This city, laid out over seven hills on the edge of the high Auvergne, celebrates its three industrial achievements in the Musée d'Art et d'Industrie; they are textiles and textile machinery, arms and bicycles. The museum’s important collection of ribbons shows the range of motifs, colours and forms that attest to the region’s creativity and savoir-faire. This continues today at the company Julien Faure established in 1864, at the Domaine de la Merlanchonnière in nearby SaintPaul-en-Jarez, and also at Jonzieux by La Maison de la Passementerie. Such sewing notions are intended for interiors or ceremonial costumes, but two contemporary French artists are beginning to explore how passementerie can be incorporated into their work– Léa Stansal and Lucile Dupeyrat, whose creations range from bags and textile jewellery to “objets”.

Passing out of the Rhône-Alpes region and down the Rhône river corridor, leaving behind Valence where the Midi is said to begin, one arrives at Marseille on the Mediterranean coast. A working port set in the surrounding region of Provence, it was4

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