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Dr Dana Sonnenschein, from New Haven, USA, was one of the participants of the TRC Intensive Textile course in September 2016. She sent the following review:

Last month, as part of the research for my sabbatical project, I traveled to take part in an Intensive Textile Workshop at the Textile Research Centre (TRC) in Leiden, Netherlands. The experience was amazing! Taught by TRC Director Dr. Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood, the five-day course combined hands-on work in textile production with overviews of global and historical practices and interpretation of historical and contemporary textiles in light of the participants’ (new) knowledge of process and product. Each day involved at least one activity, beginning with a detailed study of a myriad of natural, artificial, and synthetic fibers; moving on to individually carding, combing, and hand-spinning wool; communally dyeing wool and silk using 21 natural dyes and four different mordants and, in the case of cochineal, two different temperatures of dye-bath (to produce a rainbow of some 120 colors); individually weaving a variety of patterns on small table-looms; and, also individually, producing samplers of batik, ikat warp threads, and plangi (tie-dye using Taiwanese techniques, which produce designs I never dreamed of back in grade school when I was rubber-banding flower-power tee shirts).

Marieke Roozeboom, one of the course participants, behind a bobbin lace pillow.I’m not sure what I liked best, the forensics of finding out whether a scrap of fiber was flax or hemp, the pleasure of watching my hands and a simple spindle turn wool into yarn, the slow emergence of a pattern when weaving with a needle, or the adventure of painting a cotton scrap with hot wax. I learned that I will never be a master-dyer—that would take a lifetime—but I’ll always remember that iron “saddens” the color. And now I understand the basics of most of the processes involved in producing fabric and clothing, from prehistory through the present, knowledge that will inform future poems as well as my creative work with fiber. An historian or archeologist could use such skills to add an experimental component to her or his research, as Grace Mary Crowfoot did when she established that certain ancient Egyptian textiles were produced by the kind of loom still used by early twentieth-century Bedouins.

Each day of the Intensive Course also involved mini-lectures giving the “theory” of what we’d been practicing, followed by discussion of exemplary textiles, which Dr. Vogelsang-Eastwood guided so that participants learned to read/interpret everything, from pieces of cloth to garments from specific places and for particular purposes (for example, a symbolic sari, inexpensive and intended for purchase by a poor person as a temple offering vs. an expensive and carefully hand-printed sari, enormously valuable to its original owner but fallen in price/worth as soon as it became second-hand). As those examples suggest, understanding textiles is a way of understanding identity and culture (and vice versa). To truly read anything that came into one’s hands, one would need to study not only the object but when and where it came from. Fortunately, the TRC houses many stories as well as boxes and boxes of textiles. And, unlike most curated collections, which focus only on display, the TRC emphasizes research, so almost all its treasures may, with care, be handled.

Moniek van Sandick overhandigt een kostuum van de 3 Oktober Vereeniging aan Gillian Vogelsang, directeur TRC.Afgelopen donderdag kreeg het TRC bezoek van Moniek van Sandick, een van de eerste vrijwilligsters van de TRC en nu gemeenteraadslid in de gemeente Leiden. Maar Moniek is ook lid van de 3 October Vereeniging, dat roemruchte orgaan dat sinds 1886 elk jaar leiding geeft aan de festiviteiten in Leiden die de bevrijding vieren van de stad, nu al weer 442 jaar geleden, om precies te zijn op 3 oktober 1574. Op die dag ontdekten de Leidenaren dat het Spaanse leger, dat de stad vele maanden had belegerd, uit de omstreken van Leiden was vertrokken. Van de 18000 inwoners van Leiden vòòr het beleg, waren er 6000 omgekomen of gestorven.

Het ontzet van Leiden leidde mede in de jaren die volgden tot het ontstaan van een onafhankelijk Nederland. Direct leidde het ontzet tot de oprichting van de Universiteit Leiden, die op 8 februari 1575 officieel werd ingesteld.

Het ontzet van Leiden wordt elk jaar nog steeds groots gevierd. Leidenaren en oud-Leidenaren eten haring met wittebrood, ter herinnering aan het eerste voedsel dat na het ontzet in de stad werd ingevoerd, maar ook hutspot, dat mengsel van aardappels, wortelen, uien en klapstuk, dat volgens de verhalen vanuit het verlaten Spaanse kamp naar de stad werd gebracht in een enorme ketel. Enorme ketel ....., de verhalen zijn wat overdreven. De bewuste ketel wordt bewaard in Museum De Lakenhal, en is niet zo vreselijk groot.

Maar terugkomend op het bezoek aan het TRC van Moniek van Sandick. Zij bracht voor de TRC collectie het officiële kostuum dat van 2005 tot 2015 door vrouwelijke leden van de 3 Oktober Vereeniging op 3 oktober werd gedragen. Een prachtige aanwinst voor de TRC collectie, die daarmee eens te meer de verbondenheid met de oude textielstad Leiden aangeeft.

Willem Vogelsang, 1 oktober 2016

Ruband faceveil from Afghanistan. TRC 2016.2038Last week we reported on the acquisition of a burkini from Australia (click here). Now the TRC has acquired yet another unusual and very intriguing item that is also related to the concept of veiling, namely an Afghan face veil (ruband), which is decorated with Hazara style embroidery. It dates to the early 20th century and probably comes from the Kandahar region of Afghanistan. The Hazaras constitute an ethnic group in Afghanistan that is Shi'ite, rather than Sunnite, and speaks Persian (Dari), with many Mongolian loanwords. They claim to descend from the Mongolian armies of Djenchis Khan, that occupied Afghanistan in the early 13th century. For their embroidery in general, see TRC Needles.

Rubands originated in Persia in the 17th century and remained in use throughout the Persian world of influence until the mid-20th century. They were worn over the top of a chador. The use of separate rubands continued in the form of the veil section of the well-known chadaris and burqas, which combine both chador and ruband, and which are still widely used in Afghanistan and Pakistan respectively (there are examples of both forms in the TRC Collection).

Although the TRC knew of Pashtun examples of rubands (decorated with Kandahar style embroidery), Detail of face veil.the existence of Hazara versions is a new and exciting discovery for us. The embroidery on the face veil takes the form of a series of geometric shapes, stylised plant motifs, as well as amulets (‘hand of Fatima’) carried out in satin stitch (see TRC Needles) and double running stitch, with a touch of herringbone stitch in the border. The stitches are all worked in floss silk of various colours (probably dyed with aniline dyes). The eye section (to the right) has been created using drawn thread work, and is surrounded by satin stitch embroidery in the Kandahar style. This veil will be included in the TRC’s project on embroidery from Iran, Central Asia and the Indian Subcontinent, as well as being on display in the 2-day course on veils and veiling at the TRC (4-5 November 2016).

Gillian Vogelsang, 28 September 2016

Ban the Burkini signWomen’s burkini swimwear seems to provoke controversy. In 1907, the Australian world champion swimmer, Annette Kellerman, was arrested by police for indecency. Her ‘crime’ was to wear a one-piece swim suit that stopped above her knees. Decades later the bikini was banned in several countries after its first appearance in 1946. Proclaimed ‘sinful’ by the Vatican, the fashion magazine Modern Girl Magazine wrote in 1957 that "it is hardly necessary to waste words over the so-called bikini since it is inconceivable that any girl with tact and decency would ever wear such a thing".

And now there’s the burkini, swimwear that covers everything except a woman’s face, hands and feet. It’s popular with some Muslim women who want modest clothing. This August in France over twenty coastal municipalities declared a ban on burkinis. Dozens of women have since been fined for wearing a burkini based on the grounds that the outfit does not respect “good morals and secularism”. In Nice, four police officers demanded that a Muslim woman lying on the beach remove her long-sleeved tunic. Photographs of the incident went viral and prompted an international debate. While France’s highest administrative court has ruled that the burkini ban of the town of Villeneuve-Loubet is illegal, mayors of other communities with similar laws have refused to lift their bans.

TRC vrijwilligster Else van Laere in Sulawesi, Indonesië.Else van Laere, een van de TRC vrijwilligers, is momenteel in Indonesië waar zij voor de organisatie PUM helpt bij het verder uitbouwen van een commerciële textielondernemning. Zij stuurde ons het bijgesloten bericht:

Voor PUM ben ik nu bij een bedrijf dat gerund wordt door een 37-jarige vrouw, Kristina, en waar met name (school)uniformen en kleding op maat wordt gemaakt. Het is het meest verbazingwekkende bedrijf dat ik in al mijn Pum-missies ben tegengekomen. Als kind van acht jaar werd Kristina langdurig ziek en van school genomen. Na een half jaar was ze nog steeds niet beter en toen moesten haar ouders haar het huis uit doen (anders zouden de ouders volgens een plaatselijk geloof overlijden). Ze kwam terecht bij een gezin waar ze tot haar 17e als meid werkte. Toen trouwde ze. Haar man kreeg een baan elders in de provincie, maar overleed daar al gauw. Daar zat ze als 18-jarige met een kind van tien maanden. Ze heeft dat kind elders moeten onderbrengen en is weer als meid gaan werken (je hebt dan alleen kost en inwoning, maar geen salaris). Ze hertrouwde, maar is in 2007 weer gescheiden. Ze had toen vier kinderen.

Ze heeft vervolgens werk gevonden in een naaiatelier en daar twee jaar gewerkt. Toen had ze geld genoeg gespaard om twee naaimachines te kopen en is samen met haar zus voor zichzelf begonnen. In 2013 gaf ze naailes aan diverse jongeren en de 25 besten vroeg ze te blijven. Ondertussen was ze de scholen in de omgeving afgegaan om orders voor schooluniformen te krijgen. In Indonesië dragen alle schoolkinderen (en ook ambtenaren) een uniform. De scholen schrijven elk jaar een ander uniform voor, dus elk jaar moeten alle kinderen een nieuw uniform aanschaffen. Ze kreeg de nodige opdrachten: niet omdat ze goedkoper was maar omdat ze de onderwijzers een “bonus” in het vooruitzicht stelde, in de vorm van kleding of stof. Sindsdien groeit het bedrijf als kool; ook omdat ze kwalitatief betere uniformen verkoopt en ze (meestal) tijdig aflevert.

Woven (brocade) cloth from Yazd, Iran, presented to the TRC by H.E. Masoud Soltanifar, Vice-President of Iran.The last few days have proven, most unexpectedly, to be quite exciting and intriguing! Early on Thursday afternoon the Iranian Embassy, The Hague, rang the TRC to say there was a delegation of Iranian officials in the Netherlands and they would very much like to come and see the TRC, discuss how we work, and to review our collection of Iranian dress, which we assembled some fifteen years ago in Iran. At present, the Iranian dress and textiles collection at the TRC consists of over 1200 items and includes garments and outfits for men, women and children from all the main cultural and ethnic groups in the country. We could collect the textiles thanks to the financial support of Shell and the enthusiastic cooperation of the Iranian Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organisation (ICHHTO).

A few hours later our honoured guests arrived. They included His Excellency Mr. Masoud Soltanifar, Vice-President of Iran and President of the ICHHTO; the wife of Mr. Soltanifar; Dr. Bahman Motlagh (the deputy of Mr. Soltanifar; the wife of the Iranian ambassador to The Netherlands, and staff from the Iranian Embassy.

The TRC’s latest exhibition Embroidered Europe is now open and attracting many visitors from all over the world – literally from Taiwan to Twente. In addition, on Thursday we had the privilege of showing the exhibition to H.E. Masoud Soltanifar, the Vice-President of Iran and his wife, as well as the wife of the Iranian Ambassador to the Netherlands, and other honoured guests. See my blog article about this visit.

In order to give people an idea of the scale and variety of the current exhibition, we are now working on a visual report with a number of photographs from the official opening that took place on Tuesday 30th August. This will be sent around next week to followers of the TRC as well as appearing on our webpage.

The opening was carried out by the well-known Dutch textile and costume curator, Ms. Gieneke Arnolli (who is also chair of the Dutch Kostuumvereniging), and Mr. Daniel Czonka of the Hungarian Embassy, The Hague, responsible for cultural affairs. But, quite rightly, attention at the opening was focussed on Mrs. Magdalena Kircher, whose collection (some 1500 pieces) has just come to the TRC. This exhibition was designed to honour her work, dedication and love of European regional dress. The TRC is now in a position to carry on her work in the form of this and more exhibitions, publications, and workshops.

Speaking of workshops, on Wednesday 31st August, the TRC’s Wednesday Workshop was on the theme of European Embroidery, with an in-depth guided tour of the exhibition, and a two-hour practical based on various techniques, from chain stitch to Hungarian braid stitch, in various materials (cotton cloths and felt) and threads (cotton, wool of various ply’s and thicknesses). The Hungarian braid stitch is fun to do, once the initial technique is mastered and it is a very effective method of decorating a garment.

The next Wednesday Workshop will take place on the 28th September and is about the Holbein stitch. In addition, there is a 5-day intensive textile course between 19 - 23 September (two places available), and again between the 17th and 21st October (one place available). On the 4th – 5th November there is a two-day workshop about veils and veiling – with a burkini available for people to see what it actually is and what all the fuss is about! Please get in contact with the TRC at Dit e-mailadres wordt beveiligd tegen spambots. JavaScript dient ingeschakeld te zijn om het te bekijken. if you wish to attend any of these, or indeed any other, TRC workshops.

Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood, 9 September 2016

One of the blouses in the TRC collection and currently on display in the exhibition Embroidered Europe, is decorated on the sleeves with bands enclosing an intriguing design of ornate squares and tiny trefoils. The embroidery is worked in cross stitch and double running stitch (Holbein stitch) on a fine, even-weave cotton ground.

The blouse comes from Hungary/Romania and dates to the mid-20th century. The design is worked in a mid-green cotton thread. It can also be worked in silk, a six-stranded cotton thread (three strands at a time) or a fine, cotton perlé, but please remember that the ground material needs to be adapted to the type of thread used. At first glance the pattern looks easy, but you have to take care because of the mirror imaging and reversals in the pattern.

Chart for embroidery on an Hungarian/Romanian blouse. Please click the illustration for PdF file.

Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood, 10 September 2016