Daily and general garments and textiles

Daily and general garments and textiles

An embroidered tunic was discovered at the archaeological site of Dush, in the south of the Kharqa oasis, Egypt. The site was occupied from at least the mid-third millennium BC until the fifth century AD. Since 1976 the area around Dush has been investigated by the Institut français d’archéologie orientale (IFAO, Cairo).

The Victoria and Albert Museum in London houses an embroidered napkin or towel. It is a type of cloth, decorated along the two short ends, which is called a yaglik. It dates to the mid-nineteenth century. It is made of cotton, with silk thread and metal thread embroidery. It measures 245 x 35 cm. Stitches used are the double running stitch, the musabak stitch and the satin stitch.

The Victoria and Albert Museum in London holds a woman's jacket (71 cm from collar to hem), made of silk, and embroidered with very brightly coloured silk threads using satin stitch. The jacket was made in China, obviously for a Western market.

The Victoria and Albert Museum in London houses a large number of embroidered napkins or towels, called yaglik in Turkish. One particular specimen discussed and illustrated here dates to the nineteenth century and is made of linen with silk thread and metal thread embroidery. It measures 110.5 x 49 cm. Stitches used are the double running stitch and the fishbone stitch.

A fourteenth century embroidered panel from Lower Saxony, in what is now Germany, depicts a haloed figure, perhaps representing Christ or a saint. He is tied to a pole and is being beaten with a whip and club by two men wearing striped garments and parti-coloured hoses and shoes. There is a cup-like object (possibly the top of the column) above the haloed figure, and two birds.

Alnwick Castle, England, houses the embroidered gloves supposedly worn by King Edward VI at his coronation in 1547. The gloves form part of the collection owned by the Duke of Northumberland. Edward VII was the son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour.

A gognots is the name for an apron worn by (Western) Armenian women. It used to be an indispensable part of their outfit, and was decorated with needlework or woven forms of ornamentation, and often worn together with a card-woven or metal band or a narrow, knitted belt, generally with an embroidered text (for instance "for good health").

The Victoria and Albert Museum in London houses a mid-nineteenth century woollen coat or choga richly decorated with gold-thread embroidery and couching. The choga was acquired in Amritsar in 1855.

The Victoria and Albert Museum in London houses a young man's (formal) gown, or angarkha, from Lahore, South Asia, and dating to the mid-nineteenth century. The gold and silk thread embroidery has been applied separately to the cotton ground material of the gown.

A chemise is an undergarment that has the form of a dress. It was worn for centuries by women throughout Europe, both urban and rural. But the widespread use of chemises had virtually died out in Europe, including in the Greek mainland and islands (they were called poukamiso in Greek, by the latter half of the twentieth century.

The Hardwick Hall kantha quilt is an early example of Bengali (India) kantha work dating to the early seventeenth century, in the collection of Hardwick Hall (England).

The Victoria and Albert Museum in London houses a headdress from the north of Pakistan (Chitral). It is made of a densely woven wool and felted cloth (locally called patti). It dates to the twentieth century. It is 83 cm high and 85 cm wide at the base.

Illustrated is a blue, silk evening jacket decorated with signs of the zodiac and other 'heavenly' symbols. The jacket was created by the Italian fashion designer, Elsa Schiaparelli (1890–1973) and embroidered by the French couture embroidery atelier, Maison Lesage. The jacket dates from 1937.

The Textile Research Centre (TRC), Leiden, houses a beautifully embroidered woman's waistcoat that derives from Hungary and dates to the late twentieth century. It measures 47 x 44 cm. It comes from the region of Matyo, and the decoration is characteristic for the area. The waistcoat is made of (factory made) black felt, decorated with rayon thread.

The Textile Museum of Canada houses a choga, a long-sleeved, loose-fitting garment, of a type that was popular in the north of the Indian subcontinent and neighbouring Afghanistan in the nineteenth century. The choga measures 138 x 168 cm and is made of goat hair, cotton and silk.

The Rijksmuseum Amsterdam houses an ivory-coloured, Indian shawl made of cotton crêpe. It measures 137 x 114 cm and is decorated with sprigs of flowers with a green leaf, embroidered in silk. It is dated to the late eighteenth century. A wooden block was probably used to transfer the outline of the motif to the cloth.

Indian craftsmen, especially from Bengal, were allegedly introduced to Portugal from the sixteenth century. The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, has a linen smock from Portugal dating to the first half of the seventeenth century and produced in the so-called Indo-Portuguese style, perhaps by Indian embroiderers living in Portugal.

The Victoria and Albert Museum in London houses a remarkable woman's jacket from Nepal, dating to the mid-nineteenth century. It seems inspired by contemporary European/British military uniforms. The velvet garment has large cuffs, epaulettes and the front panels are densely embroidered with seed pearls, sequins and gold thread.

The collection of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam includes a pair of early seventeenth century embroidered gloves for a bride (acc. no. BK-1978-48-A). They are made of waxed leather, decorated with silk, lace, gold thread and paillettes.

The Victoria and Albert Museum in London houses a nineteenth century Kashmir coat made of black wool with gold thread embroidery. The embroidery includes the paisley motif.

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