Visit to the TRC by women from the Morschwijk, Monday 27 November 2023. Photograph by Femke Bolding.On Monday, 27 November 2023, the TRC welcomed an international group of women from Huis van de Buurt Morschwijk in Leiden. This is an informal group of women living in the Morschwijk, a district of Leiden. The women originally come from Colombia, India, Indonesia, Morocco and Surinam.

The meeting started with an introduction to the TRC by its director, Dr. Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood. This led to a discussion about dress and identity, one of the main themes of the TRC's work: We study what men and women wear in order to say, consciously or not, who they are or who they want to be.

Visit by group of women from the Morschwijk, Leiden, to the TRC, Monday 27 November 2023. Photograph by Maria Linkogle.After the introduction, a tour was given of the current Fashion of the 1920s exhibition. Afterwards we had lunch when we further discussed dress and identity.

A number of our guests talked about their knowledge and experience with making their own clothes and about decorating clothes with embroidery for their own bridal outfit.

After lunch we looked at specific textiles from the large TRC Collection.  The women enjoyed telling each other more about the textiles that they recognized from their country of origin.

One of the participants later told us: “I thought it was wonderful. It went very nicely. We heard a lot about different things, so I really enjoyed it and also being together with all the other ladies.”

The TRC was pleased to welcome the group, thanks to a subsidy from the Fonds voor Cultuurparticipatie for our current, much-larger project: Engaging Textile Heritage Communities through Citizen Culture. For (another) Facebook blog about this event, click here.

Written by Maria Linkogle, coordinator TRC of the Engaging Textile Heritage Communities through Citizen Culture programme. 2 December 2023.