CONTENTS
INDULGE textiles to buy, collect or simply admire 70 SHOP TALK Jane Audas goes shopping at Flow Gallery photography by Claudia Brookes 76 A TRAIL OF TWO CITIES Clare Lewis guides us through the historic streets of Edinburgh illustrated by Anna Simmons 96 SWATCH Favourite Fabric No 37 Donegal Tweed by Sarah Jane Downing, illustrated by Holly Maguire
GLOBAL textiles from around the world 14 OUT OF FASHION Birgitta de Vos journeys to find the new fashion 44 PENNSYLVANIA PALETTE A look at the sophisticated language of Pennsylvania German Textiles by Candice Kintzer Perry
ANECDOTE textiles that touch our lives 28 BAG FOR LIFE The biography of a plastic bag by Sophie Vent 48 HEADSTRONG One milliner takes a closer look at Patey Hats by Mary Jane Baxter, photography by Claudia Brookes 36 MATERIAL GIRL Christien Meindertsma is living in a material world by Jessica Hemmings 40 DOUBLE DUTCH Jessica Hemmings deconstructs Dutch Design
ATTIRE critical reporting of fashion trends 24 FAUX-PAST How the textiles of the past are inhabiting the wardrobes of today by Grace Warde-Aldam 62 CAPED CRUSADER Burberry looks to Henry Moore for Inspiration by Sarah E Braddock Clarke
INDUSTRY from craft to commerce 52 LOOMING LARGE The London Cloth Company is scaling up by Catriona Graffius 58 THE GOOD SHEPHERD Emily Watts unpicks the knitting traditions of the Scottish highlands and islands by Alice Sleight 72 CHECK IN Today’s Designers are re-interpreting Scottish textile heritage by Jennifer Harper 32 SCRUB UP Smart materials are offering improvements to the patient experience by Marie O’Mahony, illustration by Alex Moore 66 FLAXEN BEAUTIES High-performance composites by Adrian Wilson 79 DESIGN FILE Frank Lloyd Wright by Sarah Jane Downing
‘These Goddess-type figures are here to serve as the antithesis of the Elitist White Supremacist and Capitalist Patriarchy, and to strike fear into the hearts of harmful corporations,’ says Maddie Williams of her debut fashion collection that won her the 2017 Catwalk Textiles Award at Graduate Fashion Week.A new graduate of Edinburgh College of Art, Maddie mixes recycled plastics to subvert the material hierarchy, shredding and also reweaving postage bags, stuffing them with wads of naturally dyed fleece, turning these ‘low’ matierals into high fashion.
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As part of New York textiles month this September, Piecework Collective, the annual textiles exhibition, will include brand-new quilted work by experimental textile artist Kiva Motnyk. Known for embracing diverse approaches to design by collaborating with artists, designers and photographers, Kiva’s quilts focus on colour as a way to represent the cohesion of her own creative community based in New York.This rich and collaborative aspect of making is key to Piecework Collective, whose aim is to bring together the work of textile artists from around the world, exploring the unique aesthetics, processes and materials in individual approaches to modern quilting. Piecework Collective, 473 West Broadway, NYC, 14 - 17 September 2017, www.pieceworkcollective.com K
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To open London Design Festival 2017, Decorex – an international event where interior design professionals discover the finest luxury products from new, emerging and established talent – will return to Syon Park in Middlesex on September 17th.As part of the event, Selvedge founder Polly Leonard will lead textile designer Margo Selby, textile artist Ptolemy Mann, and Harriet WallaceJones and Emma Sewell (the creative duo behind interiors and textile brand Wallace Sewell) in a discussion on what it takes to maintain a successful and sustainable craft practice today. With the status of ‘emerging designer’ being coveted so widely across all creative sectors right now, it can be difficult for makers who have passed this ambiguous stage in their careers to gain and maintain a prosperous path in their chosen fields.The discussion will zone in on what it takes to maintain a successful practice year after year, drawing on each of the speakers’ experience in catering to corporate and individual clients, juggling demands while maintaining quality standards of craft as they navigate their ways through the industry. Decorex is a more than suitable backdrop for the event, having become synonymous with luxury, and is internationally renowned over the past 40 years for being the only UK event to discover the finest and most coveted products from a rich collection of 400 hand-selected exhibitors. The Selvedge Panel Discussion will take place on September 20th, and is free to all Decorex ticket holders. Decorex, 17 - 20 September, Syon Park, Brentford, Middlesex,TW8 8JF, www.decorex.com
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in Belgium with her flax crop, she anticipated working with Belgian yarn companies to process the flax into linen for which the country is famed. But her attempts to work in Belgium taught her what initial inquires had not: Belgian linen production now takes place in Hungary. ‘When you interview people,’ she explains, ‘you just get answers. But when you are working with production, things become clear.’ Nonetheless, Christien is far from unrealistic when it comes to these changes, acknowledging that she could not imagine how European flax farming would survive today without Chinese buyers.
‘I work with long research processes, but the material is something I believe in,’ she says. Her current project, Flax Chair, made in cooperation with natural fibre specialist Enkev for the company Label/Breed, fits this ambition closely. Made of wool, flax and bio-plastic fibres, the chair’s shape is heat-pressed in a mould. ‘It is the first real thing I have managed to combine,’ she explains with evident satisfaction in seeing the efforts of her research go into production. But Christien is also quick to see the irony of the project. ‘Who wants to design a chair anymore!?’ she laughs. ‘Sometimes as a student my work was not seen as design but as research for design. But it is more rewarding to do something that is real rather than a fiction.’
Exposing the fiction of others’ design processes is in fact a skill of Christien’s sleuthing. Her installation for the recent exhibition Fear and Love: Reactions to a Complex World at the Design Museum in London titled Fibre Market gathered colour-sorted piles of fibre from sweaters donated to charity shops.Alongside this, a wall of clothing labels confirmed the purported fibre content of the garment along with a sample and
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analysis of the actual fibre content. Beware if you think that black cashmere sweater you are buying is indeed what the label says it is.
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For the Flax Chair project, Christien describes her experience of taking a design idea from concept to production as something ‘I want to prove I can do once.’ She cites frustration that earlier publishing projects such as her Pig book did not result in a process she could follow into the future. And now that she is the mother of two young children, time is a more pressing concern for Christien than ever before. But the scale of her one-person company is intentional. ‘I like being horizontal,’ she explains of her collaborative approach. While research teams often contribute to larger-scale design offices, Christien explains that experiments in expanding her studio have taught her that the scale of one suits her best. ‘I am constantly looking for things, and I don’t always exactly know what it is. I want to live it, not manage it.’
Can we dare to hope that greater transparency will become the norm of the future of materials? Christien is realistically doubtful of this, warning that cost is not only an inescapable challenge, but that change cannot be one-sided. ‘It is not only the producer who is responsible for change,’ she explains, ‘consumers do not want to pay more.’ But I doubt that these frustrations will dissuade her from the distinct approach she has honed in the past decade and a half; one of unearthing the stories behind the materials used in the design industry worldwide. Perhaps the key for a different future lies in this astute, transparent approach. ‘It would be nice if our products became better,’ Christien says, ‘when the stories behind them get better.’ ••• Jessica Hemmings
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Previous Page: Quilt (Princess Feather Pattern), Artist/maker unknown, American, 1840-1870, Pennsylvania, cotton plain weave with cotton appliqué; intersecting diagonal and feather quilting, 236 x 231cm Left: Woven Coverlet Late 18th century, Wool and cotton double-cloth 224 x 100cm Right: Rural Pennsylvania by Catherine Milhous; 1894-1977. Poster promoting Pennsylvania, showing children from a religious community.
especially true of girls of Quaker backgrounds.Where the two groups lived side by side, German and English girls might have the same tutors, usually a woman of English background. The German girls used alphabets and motifs collected on their samplers to monogram sheets and towels for married life.
A popular trend that supplanted the cross-stitch sampler was Berlin wool embroidery. It would be interpreted and re-interpreted in ways that both reflected the original patterns and uses of Berlin wool but were sometimes eccentric and unique. By the 1830s, Berlin wool yarn began to overtake silk thread in Pennsylvania German needlework. Traditional sampler motifs passed down through generations were replaced by mass-produced Berlin patterns, many of which echoed an old world sensibility with hand-painted patterns of stags, dogs, pastoral and romantic scenes.Wool embroidery became a pastime for all ages of women for making decorative objects for the home or for gifts, which was not the motivation for the cross-stitch of their grandmothers.
Wool embroidery further evolved in the mid 19th century into threedimensional plushwork. This new craze allowed for greater creativity with wool and resulted in some truly quirky, and not always particularly attractive, parlour decorations. The best-known examples of this kind of work are the flowers that are made by wrapping a template often made of tin, with wool yarn. It was a simple technique that could be accomplished by nearly anyone, and seemed to be especially popular with Amish women.
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Today we are seeing a revival of many of these traditional techniques, and a renewed respect for the textiles of the Pennsylvania Germans with a new generation of spinners, weavers, quilters, embroiderers and even makers of plushwork, exploring new ways to use old and venerable methods. If you’re visiting Pennsylvania, there are many opportunities to view Pennsylvania German textiles in its many museums, and to experience traditional techniques through demonstrations at historic sites and festivals.This state has a diverse and fascinating textile heritage that it is delighted and ready to share with the public. ••• Candace Kintzer Perry Rural Pennsylvan iversal H
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LOOMING LARGE The London Cloth Company is scaling up
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Five years since his company’s launch and four years since we touched base, Selvedge visits Daniel Harris at the London Cloth Company’s latest digs in Epping...
It's a dark, wet Monday afternoon. In the throes of a storm, I’m heading out to Epping tube station to meet Daniel Harris, founder of the London Cloth Company, London’s first micro cloth mill in a century. It’s a suitably British day to be discussing a business that has spent the past five years producing bespoke tweeds from some of the finest British wool.
Amid pelting rain, we clamber into a taxi. ‘Not cycling today?’ asks the taxi driver. Daniel grins before deadpanning, ‘I’m a bit of a celebrity around here.’ He’s been up since 5:30 this morning installing a pop up. And yet, Daniel seems perfectly alert. I find myself wondering where he gets his energy from.
We reach the mill just as the weather clears. Surrounded by freshly ploughed fields and heavily laden bronze trees, Epping (of the Greater Borough of London) seems like the perfect combination of urban and provincial. Daniel lifts the corrugated iron door and a space full of machinery, flags, and one meowing cat opens before me.
Four years ago Daniel was a year into his new enterprise as a self-taught weaver, Daniel had a small two-loom outfit in Dalston creating a range of tweeds for designers. The concept4 James Gard iner p 52/53
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