Chest panel for a woman's outfit from the island of Marken, the Netherlands, hand painted in the style of Indian chintz, mid-20th century (TRC 2010.0493). Chintz cloth (called sits in Holland) was imported, and then exported, in large quantities from India from the 17th century, influencing local Dutch clothing, such as that from the Frisian town of Hindelopen and the island of Marken. Although we are in lockdown it does not mean the TRC is silent! Far from it. We are working on numerous plans and ideas to make 2022 a memorable year for all textile lovers and friends of the TRC. Our plans include many more workshops, courses, events such as book fairs, open weekends, Q&A days, and of course various large exhibitions in the TRC Gallery. Many of these events are organised against the backdrop of the Leiden: Euopean City of Science 2022 programme.

In addition, one of our long-term projects is to create and display a series of mini-exhibitions. We have a suitable showcase in the workroom (deliberately placed there and not in the main Gallery, so that the story is separated from the main exhibitions), in which individual objects or groups of small items can be displayed for one to two months. The mini-exhibition is not limited to showing some objects with text boards, but will also entail a series of online blogs that present the objects and provide extra information.

The mini-exhibitions reflect one of the basic philosophies of the TRC, namely framing objects within their social and cultural context. In other words, the aim is to tell the stories behind the objects. Some stories will be about individual people, others about the objects themselves, sometimes they will be technical stories, on other occasions they will be more personal accounts.

Ideas that have been suggested so far include:

Technical

• What is a bead?
• Tatting and tatting shuttles (a form of lace)
• Hand spindles
• Lead cloth seals from the late medieval period to the 18th century
• Smocking
• Broderie anglaise
• Berlin woolwork charts and embroidery
• Japanese wrapped thimbles
• Norwich worsted cloth (18th and 19th century)

Clothing

• Feestrokken
• Collars
• Jesus sandals (fashionable in the 1960s-1970s)
• Mittens, gloves and gauntlets (and no, we do not have any gauntlets in the collection - not sure where to get some!)
• Coptic monk hoods
• Zulu women’s headdresses
• Chinese caps for children

Accessories

• Miser purses from the 19th century
• Japanese beaded purses
• Handkerchiefs

Have you got an idea and would like to share it and the details with the TRC? A mini-exhibition should include one to ten objects (not too large!, for example, no quilts, but quilt blocks are ok), and such an exhibition should also be based on at least one item from the TRC Collection. Send your suggestions to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

27 December 2021