Lies van de Wege and Amber Butchart at the opening of the Socks&Stockings exhibition. Photograph by Joost Kolkman, 2019.On Saturday, 7th September, Gillian Vogelsang wrote:

The Socks&Stockings exhibition is now open! Thanks to the help of many people, notably Lies van de Wege and Chrystel Brandenburgh and their fantastic knitting crews, we have a very special exhibition. People are calling it colourful, warm, interesting, full of surprises and simply, it‘s GOOD.

What made everything so special was the presence of English fashion and dress historian, Amber Butchart, who officially opened the exhibition and gave a lecture on the history of European silk stockings. Twice in fact, because so many people registered for the lecture we asked Amber to do it again the following day. About 50 people came to the opening and both lectures were full with some 30 people attending each time. Her lecture was informative, well presented and not surprisingly there were many questions afterwards.

Amber had long heard about the TRC Leiden, but had never actually been before. She really liked our approach and the fact we have a ‘broad-based encyclopaedic collection’. She has already asked if she can use items from the collection for a couple of exhibitions and a book. Amber is planning to come back to Leiden on a regular basis and is more than willing to give more lectures on different aspects of European fashion history.

In addition, Amber has very kindly agreed to become an Ambassador for the TRC Leiden and tell her extensive network about what we are doing, what we can do and what we want to do in the future. Interesting days ahead! The exhibition will be open until Thursday, 19th December 2019.