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Piece of Dammur cloth from Sudan, 1920s, collected by Grace Crowfoot (TRC 2016.0034).Magdalena Woźniak from Poland is studying Nubian textiles. She was recently at the TRC to look at relevant objects that were collected in the 1920s in Sudan by the British textile historian, Grace Crowfoot. Magdalena has written a brief report:

The TRC Collection is very much like Ali Baba’s cave – each box contains hidden treasures! While working for the last few days on Grace Crowfoot’s ethnographic collection from Sudan, I had the immense pleasure of discovering a cotton cloth (TRC 2016.0034) labelled “ ‘Dammur’ woven from ‘Tree’ cotton at Hillet Mahmud, Sennar.”

Why is this so exciting? Because ‘dammur’ was mentioned by European travellers from the 19th century as a substitute for currency. Here is an extract from an account by the Swiss geographer and Orientalist, Johann Ludwig Burckhardt (1784-1817), who visited Sudan in 1813: “The common currency of the country at Berber, and all the way from thence to Sennaar, is Dhourra, and Spanish Dollars; […] Besides the Dhourra, another substitute for currency is the Dammour, a coarse cotton cloth, which is fabricated in the neighbourhood of Sennaar, and principally used by the people of this country for their shirts: one piece of Dammour is exactly sufficient to make one shirt for a full grown man; this is called Tob, or Thob Dammour.” (J. L. Burckhardt, Travels in Nubia, London, 1819:234).

Three pairs of buttons, The Netherlands, 1930s (TRC 2018.1497a-f).As noted in an earlier blog, the last few months at the TRC have been used to sort, photograph and catalogue a collection of 1920’s-1940’s textiles and garments from a family in Wassenaar, which is close to Leiden. The donation also included what appeared to be a small box of buttons, buckles and clasps, which fitted into our work on textiles and fashion.

The buckles and clasps were quickly catalogued and put online, but the buttons presented a totally different challenge. There were hundreds of them! What should we do with them! Keep them all? Make a general collection or something more complicated, namely a reference collection? The latter could then be used by the TRC and others for identifying and describing buttons from all ovet the place and from all periods. Buttons seem so ordinary they are often forgotten or regarded as unimportant. Such a reference collection would take them out of obscurity.

With typical TRC bravado we have decided to make such a reference collection. The button descriptions have been divided into the following: a. Materials used to make the buttons (from bone to plastics); b. General appearance (bell, convex, concave, flat, round, square, etc); c. Parts of a button (and there are an intriguing range of elements for something so small); d. Different types of fastening systems (through, shank, stud, etc); e. Function (buttons, inside buttons, shoe, glove, dress, waistcoat, uniform, etc).

It will be a while before the whole Button Reference System is working in a satisfactory manner, but we feel that this and similar reference collections will make a big difference in creating a more accurate description of what we actually have in the ever growing and quite frankly, quite amazing TRC Collection.

Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood, Sunday 13th May 2018

Detail of a Christening veil from Brussels, Belgium, c.1820 (TRC 2014.0831).TRC volunteer Olga Ieromina and director Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood are busy at the moment sorting out and cataloguing the TRC’s extensive lace collection. The main theme of the collection is 'technique' and it includes needle laces, bobbin laces, net, knotted (tatting, macramé), looped (knitted and crochet), and embroidered forms, as well as a range of machine made laces (levers, chemical, etc).

During the next few weeks more and more items relating to the production of lace will be made available to view in the TRC Collection online. These include tatting shuttles, hairpin lace frames, a wide selection of crochet hooks from the early twentieth century, as well as various types of lace bobbins and related equipment.

Most of the TRC lace dates to the 19th and 20th centuries, but we hope to increase the range of examples over the next few years to make it into a comprehensive reference collection for the identification of lace.

The weekend of the 8th-9th September 2018 will be dedicated to a two-day course given by Olga on the identification of different types of lace and an explanation of how these are made (click here for more information and registration). This course is designed for people with little knowledge of the various types of lace, but will also be of interest to the experienced.

If you have any examples of old lace that you would like to donate to the TRC, please do not hesitate to get in contact with us at Dit e-mailadres wordt beveiligd tegen spambots. JavaScript dient ingeschakeld te zijn om het te bekijken..

Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood, Thursday 10th May 2018

Pair of daily lotus shoes, early 20th century (TRC 2013.0063a-b).In order to put the TRC Collection in context AND online, we are busy making a series of online exhibitions that reflect the diversity and depth of the 20000 items in the catalogue. So far there are eight exhibitions already completed. They range from Afghan dress, postcards from the First World War, clothing from the ‘Stans’’, feed sack dresses and quilts, to Berlin wool charts and appliqués made by the men and women of the Street of the Tentmakers in Cairo.

Three exhibtions have just recently been finished. The first is an exhibition of Berlin wool charts, recently donated to the TRC collection.

The second is about ancient Greek loom weights in the TRC collection associated with the warp weighted loom. This exhibition is by Shelley Anderson and helps place the archaeological weights in their historical and technological context.

The third online exhibition is about Chinese lotus shoes worn by girls and women at the beginning of the 20th century. The TRC collection includes a variety of different types and sizes of these tiny shoes, as well as items relating to the making of this form of footwear, including patterns, thread, embroidered panels, irons, awls and small wooden lasts. There are regional variations as well as different domestic items, such as leggings, silk bandages, bridal shoes, daily shoes, mourning and funeral shoes, even a pair of overshoes with iron cleets for wearing in rainy and muddy conditions. This exhibition is dedicated to Mrs. Mariet ter Kuile-Portheine, a long time friend and supporter of the TRC.

In addition to the above exhibitions the two Manchester students who are currently at the TRC are working hard on their own online exhibitions. The exhibition by Kate is about urban underwear from the late 19th century until the 1960’s and will included cotton, lace and knitted examples. Kazna is busy with one about Yemeni dress for men and women. She is also thinking about making an exhibition about the different types of face veils.

We are also thinking about a digital exhibition on the decoration of women’s hats in the 1920’s and 1930’s based on a collection of over 700 items given to the TRC by the family of Mrs van Rijckevorsel van Kessel (Wassenaar). She was a textile buyer for the Dutch fashion house of Doorn. The items in this collection were either worn by her or collected during her working life. Mrs van Rijckevorsel van Kessel was a dedicated decorator of hats and the collection include hat bases, a wide range of bands and ribbons, to feathers, beaded panels and buckles.

Sunday, 15th April 2018. Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood

10 maart 2018: Reconstructie van 17de-eeuwse kousen uit een scheepswrak gevonden voor de kust van Texel. Foto: Museum Huis van Hilde, Castricum.Het is zaterdag 10 maart: Vandaag heb ik iets bijzonders op het programma staan. Ik mag dit weekeinde, samen met een stuk of honderd anderen, naar een reconstructie van 17e-eeuwse zijden kousen. Er wordt door het Textile Research Centre in Leiden een experiment gedaan met het reproduceren, onderzoeken en het gebruik van deze kousen en ik mag daaraan meedoen.

Met de trein van Groningen naar Castricum, drie keer overstappen, ik verheug me op wat komen gaat. In de laatste trein, Amsterdam Centraal naar Castricum, hoor ik opeens, door het geroezemoes in de coupé heen, iemand "0,7" zeggen. Het is als een afgesproken code-woord. Ik weet dat deze mensen hetzelfde reisdoel hebben als ik en ik sluit me bij hen aan. In Castricum, bij  het archeologisch museum Huis van Hilde, ziet het er al gezellig druk uit. Als we naar binnen mogen staat er een ontvangstcomité op ons te wachten. Bij hen leveren we de kleine, gebreide stukjes zijde in die we bij de vorige bijeenkomst mee hebben gekregen als onderzoeksmateriaal, gebreid op pen 0,7 en pen 1, met verschillende soorten zijde. We krijgen een beschrijving van een deel van de kous waar we dit weekeinde op zullen oefenen. Een zaal met zo’n honderdvrouwen en één man, voornamelijk Nederlands maar de bijeenkomst wordt ook bijgewoond door mensen uit Hongarije, Portugal en Duitsland.

Clerical collar of an Anglican vicar (TRC 2018.0902).Last week the TRC was given an Anglican priest’s detachable collar (the so-called ‘dog collar’; TRC 2018.0902), this week we were given a small collection of blue shirt collars. All of which led me to think about the English language idioms ‘white collar worker’ and ‘blue collar worker.’

A ‘white collar worker’ is associated with the detachable shirt collars made of white, highly starched linen or cotton. These were worn by professional and administrative staff, such as managers and accountants in the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries. In contrast, ‘blue collar workers’ were generally manual workers and associated with shirts of blue, brown, etc., which were easier to keep clean. These two terms represent two different social groups and occupations.

Showcase with feather jewellery from Brazil, in the exhibition "Jewellery: Made by, worn by", in the Volkenkunde Museum, Leiden. Photograph: Shelley Anderson.This is the name of the latest exhibition at the Volkenkunde Museum (Ethnographic Museum) in Leiden. Some 1000 pieces of jewellery are currently on display, out of the Museum‘s collection of thirty thousand pieces. Interestingly, in addition to the pieces themselves, the exhibit focuses on makers of jewellery. There are dozens of videotaped interviews with makers of both modern and traditional jewelry, from Japan, the Netherlands, Yemen, Ghana, India, the USA and elsewhere.

The exhibit is broadly divided into four sections, based on materials. The first section was an eye opener for me. An astonishingly wide variety of materials from nature have been, and still are, used to make jewellery. The necklaces, bracelets, brooches and head gear on display are made from stone, flowers, seeds, shells, bone, feathers, teeth, antler, hair, skin, wood and plant fibres. Many of the objects in this section are from indigenous cultures, like the large opalescent mother-of-pearl pendant, engraved and then rubbed with red ochre, from an Aboriginal nation in Australia, or the jade hei-tiki Maori pendants.

Red velvet bag from nineteenth century Iran (TRC 2002.0115).The last week or so have been very busy at the TRC. We have been sorting out the little depot, removing stands, adding racks, and putting items on the table to be photographed, catalogued and boxed. The lace collection, for example, is being moved from one storage system to another, with a much more suitable drawer system. In the process the lace will be further sorted and the descriptions refined. Thanks to the Pepin Donation, there is also a large number of machine made lace samples to be added to the lace collection. The TRC collection now includes a wide range of hand and machine made forms for people to study and be inspired by.

Speaking of inspiration: We currently have two students (Kate and Kazna) from the Manchester School of Art who are helping, among other things, to photograph and catalogue a collection of 1930’s textiles, accessories and fastenings that came from the aunt of a family now living in Wassenaar. The aunt was a textile buyer for a Dutch fashion house during the 1930’s and many of her items were stored in a flat that had to be emptied. She was also involved in the decoration of hats and had a supply of felt hat bases, satin and velvet hat bands, as well as items to decorate hats including hat pins, hat jewellery, feathers, beaded appliqués and buckles. Do you know the difference between a buckle and a clasp? And what exactly is a frame buckle and do you know that they can be divided into practical and decorative forms? There is always new to learn at the TRC.