CONTENTS

INDULGE textiles to buy, collect or simply admire 20 COUNTERPOISE Fashion finds a graceful equilibrium Daniela Gregis’ latest collection modelled by Benedetta Barzini and Aira Ghirardini, Photographer Sara Kerens

GLOBAL Textiles from around the world 43 BEST FOOT FORWARD An exhibition of shoes fit for princes from The Sadberk Hanim Museum Collection Written by Grace Warde-Aldam 46 ROUTE MASTER Tristan Rutherford follows a textile trail from Istanbul to Anatolia

ANECDOTE textiles that touch our lives 38 FASHION’S WATERLOO Sarah Jane Downing tells how society surrendered to Napoleon’s military style 96 FABRIC SWATCH No 24: Ayrshire Whitework Our regular contributor Sarah Jane Downing explores a pretty fabric that was briefly the height of fashion. Illustrated by Jennifer Corace 57 HAT STAND Despite opposition the Fez became part of a national costume

ATTIRE critical reporting of fashion trends 16 UNDOING THE LACES This fabric is no longer prim and proper Written by Kate Cavendish 26 FREE FOR ALL Amanda Carr calls time on age appropriate restrictions Portraits by Henry Nicholls and Michele Martinoli

CONCEPT textiles in fine art 52 ABSTRACT IDEAS Ali Riza Tuna weaves links between Anatolian Kilims and Modern Art 62 THE COLLECTING BUG Artist Pae White’s vast array of Vera Neumann’s domestic textiles Written by Liz Hoggard

ABSTRACT I D E AS

Ali Riza Tuna weaves links between the Anatolian Kilim and Modern Art

Woven for centuries by nomads and villagers, Anatolian Kilims were “discovered” and appreciated by western eyes in the 1970s. Since then they have been the subject of active collecting and research, entering museum collections around the world. Their designs and colours also found success with the public through fashion and interior design.

Considered a ‘folk art’, with all that implies, appreciation of the Kilim has often been based on their links to tribal culture. Certainly these textiles, in the context of their nomadic roots, carry remnants of mankind’s early symbols. They also witness a moment in the life of their anonymous creator – each has interpreted the inherited design canon through their own lens.

But while brewed from tradition, Anatolian kilims also reach intoxicating heights of form and colour. Imbued with meaning and rich in beauty, what distinguishes them from creations that earn a place in a modern art gallery? Their aesthetic qualities more than hold their own in comparison with impressionist, early abstract or later abstract expressionist paintings.

In the West the emergence of Modernism in the 19th century required a definitive break from earlier traditions. In contrast, Anatolian kilims achieved similar aesthetic qualities through centuries of gentle refinement in symbolism and abstraction. Anatolian weavers achieved freedom and innovation through, not in conflict with, tradition. 4

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F I E LD OF DREAMS V&A Curator Sarah Grant outlines the creation of Toile de Jouy

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FREE FOR A L L

Amanda Carr calls time on fashion’s “age appropriate” restrictions

When Jane Kellock and I started The Women’s Room Blog in 2008, we were in our mid forties and desperate to rebel against what we considered the outdated concept of dressing our age – whatever that actually meant.

As fashion enthusiasts we were not prepared to ‘disappear’ clothes-wise once we reached mid life, and certainly not ready to slip into nancardigans and navy slacks as our mothers might. Working in fashion as trend forecasters (our day jobs), we became aware that older women – and remember in this industry anyone over 30 is ‘older’ – weren’t supposed to ‘do’ fashion. Like the pashmina and the cargo pant we were no longer ‘of-the-moment’.

It seemed that fashion – and society generally – was happy to embrace a vintage textile but not quite so keen to encourage the display of too much vintage skin. Where once we could browse frivolous prints and playful cuts in Topshop, now sales staff assumed we were buying for our daughters.

The ‘rules’ we were supposed to follow, restricting hemlines and toning down bright colours, were to save us from that most heinous fashion crime – being mutton dressed as lamb. Dressing our age meant investing in ‘classics’ (in this context read ‘boring’) and abandoning mini skirts and bikinis forever. It came as a bit of a shock: surely the concept of dulling down was dead? And, if not, where did these ageist rules originate?

Cassie Davies-Strodder, Curator of 20th Century Fashion at the V&A, explains that as far back as the 18th and 19th century cartoonists had satirised women who dressed “inappropriately” for their age. Women’s magazines and etiquette manuals also had much to say on the matter. Heavier, darker fabrics were the wardrobe staple of the mature woman, and older married women were expected to cover their heads with a lace cap when indoors.

According to Cassie, even in more relaxed periods such as the post-war 20s, when hemlines rose and Edwardian rules of dress were abandoned, etiquette remained strict for those of a certain age. A rather severe book, HarmonyinDress published by the Women’s Institute in the mid 1920s, advised: ‘The mature woman owes it to herself, her family, and the world at large to be as becomingly and appropriately dressed as intelligent effort, skill and available money will permit.’

Issues of exposed flesh were discussed too; ‘Wrinkled arms and necks or those discoloured by time should be concealed as discreetly as possible.’ Careful consideration should also be paid to undergarments as many women ‘take on flesh’ with maturity. And we thought today’s journalism was cruel.

The stern tone taken goes some way to explain why the fashion industry still ignores us. When the boyish ‘Garcons’ look appeared during the

1920s, its advice was firm – older women should not follow the ‘extreme modes of the moment’ or ‘designs that are unmistakably originated for youth’.

It all sounds horribly familiar, but surely times are changing? According to Cassie, not that much,“Appropriateness of dress for older women is still high on the agenda and what is worn by high profile, older women inevitably results in discussions of propriety in the press.”

Having researched the fashion for platform heels for the forthcoming exhibition ‘Shoes: Pleasure and Pain’ at the V&A, she was struck by the reaction in the press to actor Helen Mirren adopting the trend on the red carpet. “The comments were disapproving and in some instances even angry,” continued Cassie. “If the press hadn’t drawn attention to this would anyone else have cared? Although we have moved on in many ways, it seems the press at least are still bound by the standards held up in the etiquette book of nearly a century ago.”

Thankfully, we are part of a rule-breaking generation who don’t want to dress like our mothers or be hemmed in by the sartorial restrictions they endured. Many women who cut their teeth in the 60s and 70s (learning how to clash a tangerine shirt from Chelsea Girl with a maxi patchwork skirt picked up on the newly invented high street) intend to dress just as boldly in their later decades.4

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INDUSTRY from craft to commerce 30 FIELD OF DREAMS V&A Curator Sarah Grant outlines the creation of Toile de Jouy Additional text by Esclarmonde Monteil 60 A DELICATE PROCESS Catherine Brunel, founder of Fra Josephine, prefers natural beauty Written by Anne Laure Camilleri

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encrusted clogs. And we are also offered a glimpse into the lives and methods of Ottoman shoemakers and distributors.

Ostensibly this is just a show about shoes: however, perhaps unsurprisingly, those on show reveal much more than what people liked to wear on their feet. Wooden clogs, or ‘Nalın’ were an essential part of daily life in the Ottoman Empire, worn by all when visiting the baths. These clogs (which resemble 1970s Glam Rock boots rather than practical slippers) were usually made with a high heel or platform in order to avoid stepping in dirty water or on hot floors. For women in particular the higher the heel, the higher the wearer ranked in society – as ever in fashion “the more things change, the

Opposite: Zorah Standing, Henri Matisse, 1912, 146.5x61cm, oil on canvas, Hermitage Opposite: Kilim, central Anatolia, 18th century

Below: Coloured squares, August Macke, 1913 Detail: “Baklava” kilim, central Anatolia, 18th century or earlier

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Jouy factory, Jean Baptiste Huet (1745-1811), 1806

Is there a more timeless, more singularly evocative textile than Toile de Jouy? For well over two-and-a-half centuries it has held us in thrall. Perhaps it was Helen Churchill Candee, interior decorator to the turn-of-the-century American elite, who best identified the reason for its enduring appeal when she observed that in these ‘hasty unreflecting days’ its winsome vignettes ‘set us dreaming’.

The mania for printed cottons began in France in the late 16th century when Indian chintzes were introduced to the market. Their lively, colourful designs spoke beguilingly of distant shores and warmer climes but also of new technologies. They utilised sophisticated painting and printing techniques and in particular, colour-fast dyes, processes then unknown to Europeans. The demand for these and, eventually, European imitations became so exorbitant that it was seen to endanger the native industries of wool and silk weaving. Louis XIV responded by imposing a ban on the import of Indian chintzes and their production in France in 1686, which was not lifted until 1759. The following year, Christopher-Philippe Oberkampf, the German-born son of a dye-maker, at just twenty-one years of age, founded the printed cotton manufactory in the small town of Jouy-en-Josas near Versailles from which his textiles would take their name.

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In the early days the manufactory comprised just two workers, Oberkampf and his brother. At its height, however, the enterprise employed 1,335 workers, housed in the largest purpose-built structure in France or Britain at that time. The factory's phenomenal commercial success and the technical refinements developed over the years at Oberkampf's behest were recognised first by Louis XVI, who elevated the establishment to a royal manufactory in 1783, and then (with not a little irony) by Napoleon, who awarded Oberkampf the légion d’honneur in 1806. Though there were hundreds of printed cotton manufactories operating concurrently with Oberkampf’s across France, many of which approached its success, not one has enjoyed Jouy’s enduring fame.

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more they stay the same.”

Based on the collection of Sadberk Koç (wife of the successful entrepreneur who founded the museum in 1980 as Turkey's first private venue) this exhibition shows how traditional dressing has evolved and the ways in which European fashions have influenced Turkish craftsmanship over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries. But a glance at designs by the West’s finest shoemakers will show inspiration flows both ways. For a/w 14/15 Spanish-born shoe designer Manolo Blahnik presented a pair of silk brocade, tasseled heels fit for an Empress. Grace Warde-Aldam Shoes From The Sadberk Hanim Museum Collection, Until May 31 2015, Sadberk Hanım Museum, Istanbul, Turkey, www.sadberkhanimmuzesi.org.tr

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