CONTENTS
INDULGE textiles to buy, collect or simply admire 13 SEASONAL CHEER Founder Polly Leonard offers a festive feast for the senses 29 QUALITY STREET illustrated by Carrie May It seems reports of the death of the high street have been greatly exaggerated... Jane Audas tells us why and suggests you shop in person this Christmas.
CONCEPT textiles in fine art 18 PORTRAIT OF A LADY Introducing the fabric art of Mick Lindberg Former Editor of Country Living Deirdre McSharry uncovers this artist’s lifelong love of stitching stories. 23 THE SERENITY TO ACCEPT Ira Bordo’s photography Selvedge Editor Beth Smith finds words can’t quite capture the quiet beauty of this Russian photographer’s ‘No Rush’ series of portraits. 54 EAST TO WEST The V&A’s biennial Jameel Prize has put contemporary artists, designers and makers who reference Islamic traditions back on the agenda Corinne Julius finds out how... 64 GALLERY TOUR Textiles are amongst the masterpieces from East Anglia Curator of Costume and Textiles at Norfolk County Council, Ruth Battersby Tooke brings Norwich’s rich textile history to light.
INDUSTRY from craft to commerce 33 ARCHIVAL QUALITY Blodwen’s Welsh Heritage Blankets Simon Olding, Director of The Crafts Study Centre and Professor of Contemporary Crafts, visits the Blodwen Mill; photographs by Alex Bray. 58 THE SHIRT FACTORY PROJECT The textile history of Derry~Londonderry Dr Catherine Harper, Dean of the Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries at University of Portsmouth, meets past factory workers.
GLOBAL Textiles from around the world 36 WE THREE KINGS The Journey of Zoroastrianism Told Through Textiles Alexandra Eleni Laura Buhler, Lecturer at The School of Oriental & African Studies, guides readers through a rich history. 45 THE REVIVAL The Craft of Silk Ikat Weaving in Uzbekistan Philippa Watkins, former senior lecturer at the Royal College of Art, recalls how she helped revive lost skills. Photographed by Edward Addeo.
COHABIT stunning interiors beautifully photographed 60 ROOM SERVICE Clare Lewis talks to Interior Designer Kit Kemp Creating warm and welcoming spaces has become second nature to this highly successful hotelier.
Pets deserve a present too. A new bed will keep them cosy all winter.
If you’d like to thank your hosts with more than a note, send a Jerusalem scented candle.
The men in your life can be difficult to buy for but a bowtie is a great option.
9 Dog bed, small €189, medium €249, large €299, Cloud 7, cloud7.de 10 Bow tie $68, Forage, www.foragehaberdashery.com 11 Fringe cashmere square scarf, small 90x90cm, 150 JPN, medium 140x 140cm 48, 300 JPN, Arts & Science, www.arts-science.com 12 Jerusalem scented candle, £55, Astier de Villatte, www.selvedge.org 13 Hand dyed velvet cushions, from £48, Kirsten Hecktermann www.selvedge.org 14 Sheepskin collar, £169, www.igig generalstore.com 15 Super Soft Multi Blanket, $3,290, Elder Statesman, Barney's New York www.barneys.com 16 Wool crepe scarf, woven in Japan, 200x30 cm, Sugoroku, £95, www.theshopfloorproject.com
You can’t go wrong with a scarf – has anyone ever objected to feeling warm or looking stylish?
Hosting a party? Need to update your furnishings? Cushions are the answer – lots of cushions.
Practically perfect in everyway – dish towels can be used to wrap gifts too.
This handknit jacket is perfect for the obligatory post lunch ramble.
Beautifully wrapped gifts create a frisson of excitement on Christmas morning.
17 Dish towels, $40, Cloth and Goods, www.cloth and goods.com 18 Block printed paper, 50cm x 70cm, £2.50, Cambridge Imprint, www.selvedge.org 19 2014 Perforated Calendar, £10, www.harringto-
nandsquires.co.uk 20 Handknit sweater, 29,000 ¥, How to Live, www.howtolive.biz 21 Braided Hanging Star Decorations, Set of four, 8 x 5cm, £6, Livingly, www.livingly.dk 22 The Pinwheel Heritage Blanket, £345, Blodwen, www.blodwen.com 23 Ikat Silk of Central Asia Kate Fitz Gibbon & Andrew Hale £300.00 out of print www.pottertonbooks.co.uk 24 Silk printed lavender bags, £15, Clarissa Hulse, www.clarissahulse.com
Should anyone be overlooked just pull this charming calendar from the emergency gift box.
Add to your collection of decorations - these folded paper stars have a simple, home spun charm.
Don’t throw a heavy coat over your party dress. This smart sheepskin collar will keep out the cold.
Teenagers can be the biggest challenge on your gift list but a bright blanket should pass muster.
Know someone who can carry off bright, bold colours? They will love this vibrant shawl.
SELVEDGE 14
P14/15
T I T L E Sub head
And after that long walk snuggle down on the sofa wrapped in a cosy blanket.
The ultimate indulgence is to relax and flick through a glorious, grownup picture book. Lavender bags are a thoughtful detail and will add a lovely scent to your guest room.
SELVEDGE 15
T I T L E Sub head
With her customary blend of unstuffy didacticism Ethel Mairet wrote in Hand-Weaving Today that although hand-weaving at the end of the 19th Century had ‘succumbed to the machine… the trade persisted… in the remoter parts of Scotland, Ireland and Wales, partly to supply a luxury demand.’ That was in 1939: today this remains the context for the survival of the traditional Welsh blanket – embattled, if not embittered.
Mairet paid special attention in her evocative primer (part textile history, part call for a new textile revolution) to the history of the Welsh Mills and their place (both cultural and economic) in ‘the interlude between primitive handwork and the highly developed textile machines’. This placed textile manufacture in Wales in a kind of metaphorical balance: between the resurrection of vulnerable skills and the rebranding of craft artefacts; between a sustainable business model and a fragile niche.
Mairet was alert to all manner of threats. How might what she described as the ‘rapid and quite ruthless’ changeover from handwork to machine be managed so that it did not have deleterious consequences for the national fabric? How might a ‘new textile expression’ cope with the heavy demands placed on it by the unyielding pressure of the market place? How might a trade and a craft built for essentially local usages cope with more complex distribution and retailing offers? In short, how might a Welsh blanket or woven fabric make its way in the world with integrity, saleability, and a combined sense of its past as well as its contemporary value?
These are also issues addressed by the launch of Blodwen’s Heritage Blanket Project. Ethel Mairet concluded that Welsh Mills could hold their own: through thrifty adaptability (using second-hand machines ‘discarded by the English Mills’); the passing on of family knowledge; and an almost moral drive, in ‘the love of honesty, pride of work and the scorn of reducing the quality of the cloth by introducing inferior skills into the spinning’. Blodwen founder Denise Lewis believes they are achieving even more than Mairet predicted, “mills in Wales are flat out trying to keep up with orders” she reports.“
Ethel Mairet may have envisaged the new Welsh cloths a restless harmony between fathers and sons, mothers and daughters: a compromise to ensure the mark of the hand was intrinsic to the material even if machinery delivered that mark more efficiently. But she didn’t comment on the way that a textile design might make creative use of the archive. Blodwen has done exactly that. This ‘new’ Heritage range is an ongoing project based on Welsh blanket patterns dating from the 1700s, ‘a hand-drawn collection created by a local weaver… collated into a beautiful pattern book… donated to the Parish Records Office in mid Wales in 1782’. The Pinwheel and The Hiraeth
SELVEDGE 34
P34/35
are the first designs to be revived but Blodwen are already working on patterns for next year.
This collection is an authentic re-imagining of cloth; a respectful replication of original designs, a re-invention of the Welsh blanket. Blodwen has recreated these designs with a sense not only of the past, but a responsibility to the way that the blanket can say something about place: the link to a traditional mode of manufacture but also to the valleys where the sheep graze, and the mountain waters swirl. The blankets have lost the ‘grittiness’ and roughness of fleece of their antecedents; but they maintain the vigour of palette and its range. But most importantly, they have the personal signature of the past written into their construction. They are a calling back, and as the textile historian Alison Carter observes, these blankets deliberately evoke elements of an idyllic past: ‘picnics on the green Welsh grass, a comfort for the fireside.’
The formidable Muriel Rose, champion of Ethel Mairet and of the Welsh Quilt revival in the 1930s through her work for the Rural Industries Bureau, travelled extensively in Wales to encourage quilters to produce work as a means both of advancing the local industry and alleviating poverty. On one trip she noted the work of Mrs Amy Thomas of Aberaman, ‘one of the old school with high standards of work’. Here she saw ‘a lovely check wool blanket’ and another made for Amy’s wedding. It was a glimpse into the past, and to the cultural as well as the practical significance of the blanket: to cosset and protect, to guard against the cold, to celebrate. No doubt Blodwen would hope to see her blankets take a similar practical and symbolic place in the homes of Wales and far beyond. Simon Olding Blodwen will be at The Selvedge Winter Fair 2013, 29 & 30 November, Chelsea Old Town Hall, King's Road, London SW3 5EE, www.selvedge.org
SELVEDGE 35
P38/39
SELVEDGE 38
conversion (forced and voluntary), persecution and migration, particularly to India where their descendants are known as the Parsis. By the 19th century, the situation for Zoroastrians in Iran had become difficult. Not only were they required to pay a heavy tax, the jizya, but they were subject to various discriminatory rules that marginalised religious minorities from the Muslim majority. These included restrictions which limited the height of Zoroastrian houses, as well as rules prohibiting them from riding on horseback and carrying an umbrella.
There were also strict constraints concerning the clothes that Zoroastrians were allowed to wear. The Christian missionary Napier Malcolm, who lived in Iran in the early 20th century, described how until the last years of the 19th century Zoroastrians had to twist their turbans (rather than fold them) and were not permitted to wear white stockings. Zoroastrian men were only allowed to wear garments made from cloth that was unbleached or yellow in colour. One rule in particular had a direct impact on the design of Zoroastrian clothing. In the towns of Yazd and Kerman, where the Zoroastrian population was concentrated, Zoroastrians were not allowed to buy material by the yard. As a result, they relied on scraps of leftover cloth which then had to be laboriously stitched together.
The traditional clothing worn by Zoroastrians, the shalvar (voluminous trousers) and kamiz (loose and long upper garment), were made from many strips of material – as many as 25 panels were used for the kamiz alone. The strips were sewn together using a stitch so fine that it was referred to as ‘the teeth of a mouse’ (dandan-e mush) and the clothes were then decorated with a variety of patterns and
.ives (Pvt) Ltd itestar photo Arch
, Wh
Arif Mahmood
, photograph
Haroon
: Hameed llection
Co
Opposite: Dastur Noshirvan Dastur Kaikhosrow Behram
Framroz (1822-1897), 20th century, Oil on Canvas
Below: Yazd cloth, early 20th century, cotton irak
ZMehran
©Ave photograph
: Fereydoun llection
Co mythological motifs. Malcolm recounts a noteworthy incident where Zoroastrians seem to have used embroidery as a form of subversion. In 1880 a Muslim cleric declared that in line with regulations placed on the Jewish community, Zoroastrians must have a visible patch on their shirts. The Zoroastrians were granted three days to prepare these patches and Malcolm describes how the ‘women set to work, and made a neat embroidered border round the neck and opening of the shirt.’ Clearly this was not the intended outcome hoped for by the cleric but since the embroidery was technically an insertion and was clearly visible, little could be said. This instance highlights how the beauty of the colours and designs found in Zoroastrian clothing from Iran during the 19th century cannot be unpicked from the discrimination the wearers endured.
The position of the Parsi community in India during this period was different and is reflected in their clothing. From the 17th century, Parsis began to settle in the growing city of Bombay. Many were occupied in the ship-yards and as traders, often in collaboration with the British. Contact with the British had an impact on the design of Parsi menswear, which adopted European elements, including bow ties and waistcoats. In contrast, Parsi women continued to wear saris but as with the Zoroastrians in Iran, the circumstances of the community at the time had an impact on the textiles used.
With the arrival of two Parsi merchants, Hirji and Mancherji Readymoney, in Canton in 1756, Parsi trade with China began. Leaving Bombay with cargoes of opium and cotton, clippers would return laden with Chinese goods for the Indian market, including porcelain and tea. However, it was the lengths of embroidered silk that were to transform Parsi fashion, resulting in the distinctive style of sari known as the gara. The embroidery on gara saris was predominantly in a white or cream twisted silk thread which provided an eye-catching contrast to the rich background colour, usually red, maroon or purple. The designs included flowers, vines, birds and the mythological Chinese fungus of immortality. Chinese embroidered cloth was also used for jhablas, the dresses worn by children until their navjote ceremony. These designs sometimes had a symbolic meaning for the Parsis as well – in both Chinese and Zoroastrian legends a bridge connects the physical to the spiritual world. Trade with China also led to the introduction of a particular type of silk brocade, popular in bridal trousseaus, known as tanchoi. This brocade is named after three (tan) brothers from the Indian town of Surat who were taught the technique by Choi, their master in China. Learning the techniques enabled the Parsis to customise the designs to reflect Zoroastrian beliefs.
Today the population of Zoroastrians in the world is approximately 100,000, the majority still living in India and in Iran. Although the change in the situation of Zoroastrians in Iran means clothes no longer need to be stitched from scraps, the gara saris (both new and antique) continue to be worn by Parsis on special occasions. And it is hoped that the heritage of Parsi embroidery will survive, in part due to the efforts of the Parzor Foundation which is supported by UNESCO. Alexandra Buhler The Everlasting Flame: Zoroastrianism in History and Imagination, Until 14 December, Brunei Gallery, SOAS, University of London, Thornhaugh St, London WC1H, www.theeverlastingflame.com
SELVEDGE 39
P46/47
SELVEDGE 46
No one could have failed to notice the recent popularity of Central Asian ikat designs as a theme for textiles in both apparel and interiors. But it’s unlikely this would ever have happened if it hadn’t been for the remarkable revival of hand loomed ikat weaving in Uzbekistan, which began in the late 1990s, with independence after the fall of the Soviet Union, and was the focus of a British Council project led by Philippa Watkins, who was at the time Senior Tutor at the Royal College of Art.
Celebrated as one of the great arts of Central Asia, the painstaking process of tie-dyeing silk warps to produce the ikat patterns had its beginnings in the old Silk Road trade route between China and Europe, reaching its peak in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In the cities of Bukhara, Samarkand and in the Fergana Valley the explosion of intricate work in deep vibrant vegetable dyes, and the superb execution of the dyeing and weaving which produced such masterpieces, were displayed in clothing and interiors by a wealthy clientele. Ikat chapans (coats) were luxury items; rich merchants wore several layers of silk ikat coats and soldiers who fought well were rewarded with the silks.
However, these crafts and many others all but disappeared during the Soviet period of the early 20th century. Craftsmen were forced into collective factories. Ancient skills were suppressed and lost. Weaving became mechanised to supply the Soviet need for mass-produced textiles. Synthetic dyes were used and patterns mechanically tied in a mix of silk and acetate. The results were busy, harshly bright and garish - for which, however, there was still a market in Uzbekistan, though a diminishing one.
Mercifully early masterpieces can still be seen, thanks to individuals such as Guido Goldman, whose collection of 19th century Uzbek ikats toured museums during the 90s; in the Megalli
Collection now at the Textile Museum in Washington; and the Rau Collection which was shown at the V&A Museum.
Then in 1990 came independence from Soviet control and the opportunity to reverse the neglect of Uzbekistan’s artistic heritage. In the Fergana Valley some of the old skills had survived, saved by master craftsmen working in secret during the Soviet years. Craft practices were revived as a way to generate income: though with no experience of a free market economy, management, marketing or competition, craftspeople struggled. Apart from renewing the skills, new markets had to be found. As it happened there was one developing fast – tourism.
While on a visit to Uzbekistan, invited by the British Council to help designers orient themselves towards Western markets, Philippa Watkins, with colleague Michael Sinel, visited Yodgorlik, a handloom weaving mill set up in the 1970s in
Margillan in the Fergana Valley. She was captivated by the place, and by the beautiful silk it was struggling to produce. “Michael Moore, the director of the British Council in Uzbekistan asked ‘Do you want to turn it into a project ?’ You bet, I said – so we began working with the weavers. The factory needed design assistance and marketing advice, in getting qualities of silk suitable to sell in new markets. From then on I was lucky enough to spend five years punctuating my life with periods, three or four times a year, working with the dyers and weavers in the production of new silk ikat fabrics.”
To regain skills, the craftsmen needed to look to their history and generate a new tradition of patterns to appeal to a wider market, without losing their cultural heritage. Colour was a priority: they no longer had the skills to work with natural dyes and had three colours to work with – red, blue and yellow. Various combinations in the tying and dyeing4
SELVEDGE 47
SELVEDGE 4
