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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).

Woman in Al Salt wearing a khalaga dress. Photograph by Fatima Abbadi.On 26 September of this year the TRC in Leiden published a blog about traditional dresses in Jordan. Continuing with the series, we want to present a particular dress from the Al Balqa region, more precisely from the town of Al Salt. The TRC in Leiden is fortunate in housing one of these exceptional (and very large) dresses (TRC 2005.0248). We also have a replica, which the TRC uses for demonstration purposes.

Al Salt lies 28 km from Amman. The town has a rich and unique artistic-architectural style, bringing together European and Arabic elements. Situated on the highlands of western Jordan and close to the Jordan valley, its land is characterized by its Mediterranean vegetation of olive trees, figs, vineyards and other fruit trees, which are being harvested and exported throughout the area.

Postcard from Belgium, franked on 13th August 1914, depicting a boy and girl in Volendam (NL) style cloth. The girl is sitting next to a spindle wheel with distaff. The image was painted by Florence Hardy (TRC 2020.4250).A little while ago we were contacted by Padma Rubiales, California, about a collection she had made of early postcards that depict spinning wheels. She had offered the cards to various museums in the USA, but sadly no one wanted them. Were we at the TRC in Leiden interested in having them as a donation?

We were intrigued and said yes, partly because we want to increase the TRC's collection of old prints, postcards and photographs (these are really useful in illustrating publications and exhibitions), and partly because many of us like spinning!

The postcards arrived a few days ago and I am so pleased we said yes. Not simply because they show many different types of spindle and spinning wheels. They also illustrate a range of dressed distaffs, as well as women using drop spindles. There are also some related techniques, such as a woman with a piece of embroidery.

The postcards depict women from a variety of different countries, including Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland, USA, Wales, The Netherlands, as well as Algeria and Japan. Most of the postcards date from the late 19th century until the 1930's. A number of the cards are franked and so we have the date when they were posted.

Vietnamese woman wearing a garment made of lacquer silk. Photograph Augusta de Gunzbourg.Textiles have stories to tell. They bring people together when they talk about the way the textiles are made and when they discuss the history behind them. Nothing is more true than that in my own family.

Growing up in Vietnam, I recall my mother (Rose Morant) working with local artisans and craftsmen, bringing me along with her to remote areas to discover local knowledge and treasures of craftsmanship of textile manufacturing and special materials, such as lacquer.

I remember the strong smell of dye baths, the sounds of silk-weaving frames and the dye-darkened arms of the people working the fabric. One such material she worked on was a textile she named the “Lacquer Silk”. A bag recently added to the TRC collection in Leiden  (TRC 2020.4236) is made out of this beautiful material. This material is also sometimes referred to as “Leather Silk” in English and as Vai den or Vai Lanh My A in Vietnamese.

The way my mother came to work with it begins like a fairy tale: “ One day in the 1990’s, I was in Ben Thanh Market in Ho Chi Minh City and saw this woman walking away wearing a pair of trousers that shined like a black mirror in the sunlight. I simply had to know what they were made of. I ran after her to ask about it and that is when I started on the road to find out about the Lacquer Silk”.

Pair of socks with the text, "Vote by mail", USA, 2020 (TRC 2020.4198a-b).Over 400 women’s marches took place in all fifty US states yesterday (17 October 2020). The marches drew hundreds of thousands of women together, both in person and virtually, to encourage other women to vote in the upcoming US presidential election, and to honour the legacy of deceased Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Many marchers wore ‘dissent collars’ (see TRC blog 10 December 2018) and pink pussy hats.

The Textile Research Centre (TRC) in Leiden has two pussy hats (TRC 2017.0186 and TRC 2017.0187) in its collection. Pussy hats are hand-made, square-shaped caps made from wool or acrylic yarn, usually coloured pink. They can be knitted, crocheted or sewn.

After Donald Trump won the US presidential election in November 2016, American knitters campaigned to make more than one million of these hats, to be given as gifts for marchers to wear at the first 2017 Women’s March in Washington, DC. The hats became so popular that American craft shops reported running out of pink yarn. Pussy hats could be seen at Women’s Marches in Amsterdam, Rio de Janeiro and Tel Aviv.

A rangzen, a Tibetan freedom bracelet (TRC Leiden).A recent donation to the TRC reminded me of the feestrokken now on display in the TRC’s exhibit Textile Tales from the Second World War. Feestrokken were patchwork skirts made by Dutch women in the second half of the 1940s to celebrate the end of German occupation and war. The donated object is a hand woven, cotton Tibetan bracelet called a Rangzen (TRC 2020.4161).

Both objects, the Feestrok and the Rangzen, are made from scraps and both originate from akong people who were being imprisoned for their beliefs. The Feestrok idea began in 1943, when a member of the Dutch Resistance was imprisoned. Mies Boissevain-Van Lennep (1896-1965) was sent a scarf made from scraps of clothing from family and friends. This patchwork scarf was the inspiration for the idea of the patchwork Feestrok.

Early 20th century pin cushion from The Netherlands (TRC 2007.0615).The TRC’s collection of some 31,000 objects includes not just some incredible textiles, but also textile tools. My favourites among the tools include some Japanese sewing needles (polished by hand, to insure they move easily through silk; compare TRC 2013.0432a-f) and a beautiful yellow silk and linen pin cushion (TRC 2007.0615), decorated with Tenerife lace. My pin cushion is in the shape of a more prosaic, and common, red tomato. Attached to it is a small strawberry filled with emery powder.

I like it because my mother had the same sort of pin cushion, as do hundreds of thousands of other sewers. But why a pin cushion in the shape of a tomato? According to the internet, this type of pin cushion originated in the folk belief that a tomato placed on a shelf protected a house from bad luck. If tomatoes were out of season, cloth substitutes were made.

New Look dress, late 1940's, early 1950's (TRC 2015.0030a-b).The end piece of the TRC’s current exhibition “Textile Tales from the Second World War” is a beautiful, blue dress from the end of the 1940’s, early 1950's, which was made in The Netherlands (TRC 2015.0030a-b). The changes in women’s wear in the period, as impacted by the difficulties of the war and a renewed energy afterwards, are quite clear when looking at this particular garment and others on display.

Rationing and fabric shortages led women to shorten their hemlines, re-use older dresses, wear tighter skirts or to forgo pockets (and sometimes even stockings) in an attempt to save on material.

Practicality overruled what had previously been seen as propriety. Reflective of the war as well in terms of style, some women’s jackets also tended to include padding and straight lines at the shoulders in an effort to emulate a military uniform’s style.

When looking at this specific blue piece from 1948 however, one will notice the rounder shoulder lines, pleating on the shoulders, the large collar and a fuller, long skirt that make it contrast with earlier wartime fashion.

The “extravagant” use of so much more material is indeed representative of renewed availability of resources after the end of the conflict. In fact, all these attributes are also rather reminiscent of the trend instigated by Christian Dior in France with his iconic New Look in 1947. Could this dress have been inspired by it? With its rounded curves and fuller, pleated skirt it could easily be argued that it was!