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What do a Chinese imperial embroidered cloud collar – vibrant in colours and highly detailed-  and a Communist worker suit - monochromatic blue, adorned with a bright red Mao pin - have in common?

Not only are they part of the Chinese collection of the TRC in Leiden, they also give a contrasting reflection of the changes that took place in China over a hundred years, from imperial times to the People’s Republic of China. In addition to their apparent esthetic differences, the two pieces however reveal different political and personal orientations in very graphic manners.

Early 20th century 'Cloud Collar' from imperial China. TRC 2004.0108).

Native American, Ojibwe (Minnesota) shirt, 2019 (TRC 2019.1605).November is Native American Heritage month in the US. Its aim is to highlight the traditions and modern cultures of Native Americans, including indigenous textile traditions.

A ribbon shirt (TRC 2019.1605), made in 2019 expressly for the TRC collection by Ojibwe textile artist Jenny Kappenman, also illustrates this connection between tradition and modernity. This traditional garment features coloured ribbons representing the Four Directions. But it is made from a non-traditional synthetic fabric that sports a floral motif, imitating traditional Ojibwe beadwork.

Pin cushion dating from 1826 from the Gouda region in The Netherlands. Initials (of the married couple?) and the date are indicated by pin heads (TRC 2020.4732a).On the 13th October we published a blog about tomato pin cushions and since then we have had a couple more pin events at the TRC! We have recently, for example, been given various twentieth century pin cushions, including a tomato with strawberry (TRC 2020.4781) form and a long strawberry (TRC 2020.4782) filled with emery sand (to keep the pin sharp and prevent rusting).

Then this weekend we were sent a pin cushion (TRC 2020.4732a and 4732b) by Christa van Veersen. It dates to the early 19th century and it is made from blue silk and linen damask. It has a design, on the blue silk side, of a date and initials. More specifically, the series of initials and a date of 1826 are made out of pin heads with a spherical shape. The pin cushion came with a bag made from a blue and white checked linen cloth.

On 24 October 1811, while on his way from Amsterdam to The Hague, Napoleon Bonaparte stopped briefly at a stately canal house along the Rapenburg (No. 48) in Leiden. The house still rises majestically opposite the medieval Academy Building of Leiden University. It is located some hundred metres from the place where his younger brother, Louis Napoleon, as King of Holland, had visited the site where on 12 January 1807 a ship loaded with gun powder had exploded, thereby devastating part of the inner city of Leiden.

Last week, the Textile Research Centre (TRC) in Leiden, located at a ten minutes' walk from the Rapenburg, received a fragment, kindly donated by Kees van der Zwan, of what may have been the pall that covered Napoleon's coffin. The cloth was allegedly used when Napoleon's remains were transported back from St. Helena in the southern Atlantic (his place of exile from 1815 until his death in 1821) to France, on board the frigate La Belle Poule. This occurred in the second half of 1840, and Napoleon's remains were eventually laid to rest in the Domes des Invalides in Paris.

Fragment of broadcloth (to the left), purportedly cut from a pall of Napoleon's coffin in 1840/1841. To the right is a piece of paper with a text in Dutch identifying the piece of cloth (TRC 2020.4528).

A cloth from the Nebaj region in Guatemala, with a woven and embroidered design of birds, lama's etc., late 20th century (TRC 2020.4575).As a result of the recently announced Dutch Government’s corona strategy the TRC will be closing its doors to the public for two weeks. We will re-open on Monday 23 November. We will, however, be continuing registering books for the TRC Library, entering textiles into the TRC Database, preparing actual and online exhibitions for next year, as well as working out an extensive diary of workshops, study days and courses. And there are going to be many diverse activities on offer! Click here to see the programme.

With respect to the TRC Catalogue, we are working on two different sections. Firstly, we are going through every single box (and there are hundreds!) in the depot where the textiles, clothing, etc., are stored and making sure all the objects are numbered, catalogued, photographed and that all of this information is available online via our online database. This will take quite a few months, but well worth while. For example, we are currently working on the Chinese, Indian and Romanian sections of the TRC Collection.

Model wearing a festive Ma'an dress from WIdad Kawar collection, with striped atlas material. She is also wearing the characteristic Ma'an headdress (arge). Photograph by Fatima Abbadi - Mignon Group.During the last few months, the TRC published two blogs about some spectacular forms of traditional dress from Jordan. These blogs were written by Fatima Abbadi, from Capelle aan den IJssel, near Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

Here we publish another blog by her hand, about traditional dress from the town of Ma' an, south of Amman. The TRC is fortunate to have a traditional coat from Ma' an (TRC 2005.0076).

Ma’an is a city some 220 km south of Amman, the capital of Jordan, along the road to the Gulf of Aqaba. During the Ottoman period it flourished as an important market and halting place for merchants and pilgrims heading to the holy cities during the period of the Hajj. Its strategic location was emphasised by the construction of the Hijaz railway, between Constantinople and Mecca.

For centuries, pilgrim caravans passed through Ma' an. They came from different countries and regions, such as Central Asia, Iran, Turkey, Syria, Palestine. Along with them came large numbers of traders and artisans, such as coppersmiths, silver smiths and weapon smiths.

Small fragment from the TRC collection, of a warp-faced compound weave, Niya (?), Xinjiang, China, 3rd century BC - 3rd century AD (TRC 2000.0009).The Cotsen Textile Traces Study Collection (at the George Washington University Museum-The Textile Museum, Washington, DC) was a prominent partner of the TRC in the recent online conference 'Textiles on the Move' (6-9 October), and it had its inaugural event recently, an online roundtable.

The Collection is composed of some 4,000 textile fragments, which range time-wise from a Chinese silk warp-faced compound weave (475-221 BCE; see also fragments in the TRC Collection) to modern American textile art, and from 1920s Wiener Werkstätte sample books to ancient Peruvian scaffold weaves. Housed in 761 hand-made boxes and divided into 15 geographical regions, it’s an impressive collection.

Among the thousands of books and publications in the TRC library (see our on-line catalogue here) is a copy of the classic The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine by Rozsika Parker.

This 1984 study helped redefine how many people looked at needlework. The book traced how embroidery changed from a respected, well-paid male endeavour into an often mocked or ignored female ‘hobby’. It also explored how women subverted embroidery to tell their own powerful stories on their own terms.

I immediately thought of this book when I saw some of the embroidery of Rufina Bazlova. Bazlova is a Belarussian artist who studied illustration in the Czech Republic. She continues to live in Prague, where she watches the protests in Belarus against the alleged election fraud of President Lukashenko. In an interview with The Moscow Times, Bazlova, who had previously embroidered a comics series, said she was moved to tell the story of the protests through the traditional skill of embroidery: "This year's national awakening simply demanded this technique of national embroidery. The events of the past months represent a portion of our great history, Belarus changed, woke up, big changes are coming that must be written into the code of embroidery."

T-shirt with a print of an embroidery by Rufina Bazlova, referring to the civil unrest in Belorussia, 2020 (TRC 2020.4207).