Selvedge Magazine

SUMMER READING BOOK SALE Enjoy Reading Textile Stories this Summer! Get a 50% off at all Selvedge Library using this code: SUMMERTEXTILEREADING https://www.selvedge.org/collections/books *Art by David Hattinger

Coming Next Selvedge issue 120, Magic Carpet. Solomon’s carpet was reportedly made of green silk with a golden weft, 60 miles long and 60 miles wide. According to the Jewish fable, “when Solomon sat upon the carpet, he was caught up by the wind, and sailed through the air so quickly that he breakfasted at Damascus and supped in Media.” The term magic carpet is believed to have its roots in Persian and Arabian folklore, particularly in the collection of stories known as One Thousand and One Nights. These tales, compiled during the Islamic Golden Age, introduced the concept of a carpet that possessed magical powers to defy the laws of gravity and transport individuals to distant lands, evoking a sense of wonder, freedom, and exploration. Similar mystical carpets exist in Indian, Russian, Tibetan, and Chinese folklore. Their presence invites us to ask: What’s so special about carpets that they have been given magical powers? The carpet responds to the fundamental human need of enclosure, defining and giving form to living space. It serves as protection against the limitless scales of space and time. It is both a house and temple, a place of shelter and leisure, and a place for prayer. The frame of the carpet cuts and delineates a portion of infinite space, devoting it to human existence, as is demonstrated in primary school classrooms up and down the country. Carpet time is a space where unity, respect for one another, turn-taking and working together towards a shared goal are encouraged. As Ginger Gregg Duggan and Judith Hoos Fox, co-editors of this issue, state in their article “Breaking New Ground,” “it is because the carpet is an object of daily use throughout cultures and across societal stratifications [...] that it offers an entry point for artists’ manipulations, reinterpretations, and new creations. It provides the context to merge past with present, serious history with pop culture, and stereotypically Eastern and Western ideologies.” (.

On 18 September 2021, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s public artwork L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped, 1961–2021 was unveiled in Paris. Over 16 days, the Place de l’Étoile was closed to traffic, allowing six million people to visit the L’Arc de Triomphe and see this work of art. Two years later, the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation are now collaborating with Parley for the Oceans, a global environmental organisation (whose primary focus is on reducing plastic in the ocean), for the final phase of this project – repurposing the materials to make shade structures and tents for the 2024 Olympics and Paralympic Games, to be held in Paris this summer. “A constant commitment of Christo and Jeanne-Claude was to reuse, upcycle, and recycle all materials used in their projects,” said Vladimir Yavachev, project director of L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped. All of the Image: Christo Arc de Triomphe. materials used to create public artwork are being reused. The 25,000 square meters of silvery blue polypropylene fabric and 3,000 m of red polypropylene rope have been processed by Parley for the Oceans and are being redesigned to create the tents and shade structures. While the non-textile materials, the wood and steel that were used for the project’s substructures, have already been repurposed by Les Charpentiers de Paris, Arcelor Mittal, and Derichebourg Environnement for projects in Paris or will be recycled by the supplier. Adapting to the challenges of rising temperatures, the tent structures are designed to protect human life against the dangerous heat waves that Paris now experiences in the summer months. “This is a very fine example of the art world’s ability to adapt to climate challenges,” Yavachev says. christojeanneclaude.net/parley.tv/ (...) Read the complete News Section on Selvedge issue 119 Savoir Faire. The link is provided in our bio. Image courtesy: Christo Arc de Triomphe

HOMEWARD BOUND Inside Patriae The Latin word “PATRIÆ” translates to fatherlands, or homelands: an apt name for a business whose core lies in family history and breathing new life into the traditional textiles of one’s country industry Patriae founder Barbara “Babs” Pisch and her family fled communist Czecho Slovakia for the United States when she was just six years old; she didn’t return to her native country until the age of 12, which sparked a new tactile relationship with her home culture. Among the many collections of objects in her grandparents’ house (which she remembers as a “museum-meets-flea-market,”) she gravitated toward the fabrics used every day around the home, and others she found stowed away in the attic. Having come from a long line of tailors and seamstresses, textiles and fibre arts weren’t new to Pisch, but even as a child she recognised the distinct qualities of the handmade antique fabric she became re-acquainted with in Slovakia. Her initial attraction to them, she says, “was a subconscious way for me to reclaim my culture and bring a piece of my homeland back to the US with me.” (...) Please read the entire article on Selvedge issue 119, Savoir Faire. https://www.selvedge.org/products/issue-119-savoir-faire video courtesy of @patriaestudio @robcusick

Secret Crush Designers and their love affair with antique French linen (...) Shichu Chi, of Taiwanese descent, shares the same love and respect for textile craftsmanship; indeed, it is the essence of her brand, Something in the Air (s.i.t.a.). The daughter of a French professor, she was naturally immersed in the French language and culture from a young age. After spending a year as a student in a foyer run by nuns in Angers, she moved to the United States to study women’s fashion at Parsons. Chi soon realised that her experience of living a simple life and learning to be mindful in her present actions, as well as witnessing France’s efforts to preserve history as well as arts and crafts, had opened her eyes to the beauty of collecting, cleaning, repairing, and reinventing French vintage linen and lace. (...) Please read the entire article on Selvedge issue 119, Savoir Faire. The link is provided in our bio. Image & video courtesy of Shichu Chi #linen #textilecraftsmanship #textilestories

Don't miss out — join us for this exciting talk next week! The Fabric of Life with Monisha Ahmed, Textiles from the Ladakh Himalayas. - in-person and online At The Artworkers’ Guild, 6 Queen Square, London WC1N 3AT Book your tickets https://www.selvedge.org/collections/online-talks

SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW Modern-day bridal wear section Occurring twice a year for Spring/Summer and Autumn/Winter in January and July, respectively, the Haute Couture Paris shows traditionally end with bridal wear. This prevails in today’s mid-2020s, where emphasis is given to sumptuous fabrics, classic silhouettes, immaculate construction, and faultless embellishment – often using sought-after artisanal techniques. Marrying the past with the present requires an eye on sustainability – wearing an item of clothing only once feels too decadent as well as unsustainable. So, how can today’s wedding dressing be entirely appropriate – making you look and feel good in a way that no other ensemble in your wardrobe does? Bridal wear should be attractive in all areas: it needs to fit the body, where it should and flatter your features. Moreover, it needs to enable you to stand proud when emotions come to the fore, and all eyes are upon you. (...) Please read the entire article on issue 119, Savoir Faire The link is provided in our bio. Video courtesy of Renli Su #bridal #dress #textiles #culture #hautecouture #handmade

Meet the maker - Selvedge Summer Programme One hour online events with textile makers consisting of talk, demonstration and Q&A session. Want to try one of our events for free? As a summer treat, we are offering a 100% discount to subscribers on one of our Meet the Maker events. Hear from Juhi Sharma, founder of Vamika, a social enterprise revitalising neglected craft skills among the Kalbeliya community or Nadia Albertini, a haute-couture embroidered, based in Paris, who works with artisans all over the world, from the historical embroidery houses in Paris, to the most talented artisans in Italy, India and Madagascar. Artisans in Italy, India and Madagascar are just two of our events on offer. Our Meet the Maker events are a chance to meet and talk to textile makers from around the world and learn about their textile journeys and the crafts they are preserving. Use your subscriber code today to book your ticket to one of our Meet the Makers for free. *Your subscriber code is in your copy of 119 or in the email we sent you on Saturday, June 15th, with the link to your digital magazine. The link to these events is provided in our bio.

Saturday 8 June 2024, Online Symposium, Irresistible Inspired by issue 117: Irresistible of Selvedge Magazine we are inviting a discussion around the irresistible nature of resist-dyeing techniques around the world. Human beings are hard-wired to find patterns everywhere. Patterns created through resist dyeing are found all over the world, and from intricate multi-coloured ikat in Uzbekistan and the 16-stage process used to create Ajrak in Gujarat. Is it the place it holds in much of humanity’s intangible cultural heritage that makes resist dyeing irresistible? 2024 is the International Year of Batik, see batikinternational.com for details, and in issue 117, collector Rudolf Smend explains why he is drawn to the apex of the craft practices in Indonesia. Yet this one technique has many forms of expression, from the Arabic-inspired designs of Nazek Hamdi to the precise patterns achieved in Miao batik from China. Is it its versatility that makes resist dying irresistible? Join a line-up of speakers of textile practitioners, academics, designers, and artists, each of whom approaches the subject from different perspectives and enriches the event with unique stories of resist-dyeing. Access to the event and recording A Zoom link will be sent to ticket holders one week before the event. The event will be recorded and a recording shared with ticket holders after the event. Please allow 7 working days for us to send you the recording. https://www.selvedge.org/products/saturday-8-june-2024-online-symposium-irresistible

All eyes will turn to Paris this summer with the 2024 Summer Olympics. At Selvedge, we too have been swept along by the excitement that has brought our attention to savoir-faire, the French concept of expertise in textiles. This issue we look at the 50th anniversary of the Battle at Versailles – the evening a sociocultural shift took place that resonates today. The editorial examines the past iterations of Savoir-faire found in irresistible flea market finds. We rubbed shoulders with the dealers on Sunday morning at Porte de Clignancourt, picking up some soft but sturdy vintage linen so appealing to contemporary designers, French slow fashion brand École de Curiosités, Camiceria Eri bespoke shirt-makers and Sasaki-Yohinten from Japan, and New York-based something in the air, as well as the Selvedge team. We venture north to Méru and discover the Musée de la Nacre (Mother of Pearl) housed in an impressive nineteenth-century former button factory. Here we learn that by 1900 shells were of greater value than pearls - and world markets were using the shells for cutlery handles, inlay work and millions of beautiful buttons, some of which made their way onto the First Nation blankets and the working dress of the Pearlies in the East End of London. (...) Traditional savoir-faire, a treasure trove of textile expertise, is diligently kept alive by the petites mains; such as the pleater Karen Grigorian, who inherited skills from the 19th-century modiste and draws inspiration from 20th-century Autochromes from the Salon du Gout Francais – Nadia Albertini takes us behind the scenes at his atelier. Looking to the future once again French savoir-faire is leading the fashion world with new legislation Loi AGEL (Loi Anti-gaspillage pour une encomie curculaire) requiring every product imported into France to be accompanied by a passport which provides compulsory sustainability and circularity information for the item - bravo! (...) Polly Leonard, Founder

Join Selvedge throughout the year be part of a community passionate about textiles The Selvedge workshop programme brings together textile practitioners and experts to teach and talk textiles, preserving hand craft skills and knowledge. Meet like-minded people from around the world, and learn new skills. Browse our upcoming schedule online at www.selvedge.org Link in our bio

Coming Next 118 Hand in Hand CURTAIN CALL—Royal Opera House collaborations BOOK SMART—Odette Blum SISTERS ARE DOIN’ IT FOR THEMSELVES - Saheli Women FROM ANONYMITY TO IDENTITY—Asif Shaikh TAKE REFUGE–Textile initiatives engaging with refugees TOP HAT—Maleza Milliners CONVERSATIONS WITH A CONSERVATOR— Cesar Rodriguez BRIGHT IDEAS—Hope for Handloom A LIFELONG PASSION—Lou Taylor LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION!—Sandy Powell TAKE REFUGE—Textile initiatives engaging with refugees IN STITCHES—Fusegi Yohei HIDDEN IN THE HILLS—Vietnam TRAVELLERS CHECKS—Real Madras Handkerchief BURNING THE MIDNIGHT OIL—Nike Okundaye PLUS: UNRAVEL, Fashioning San Francisco, Sonia Delaunay: Living Art, and Real Clothes, Real Lives. Published on 15 April. https://www.selvedge.org/products/copy-of-issue-118-hand-in-hand-preorder

WILD BLUE YONDER An exciting new breed of designer-entrepreneurs are reviving stitch-resist dyeing techniques. The fashion silhouettes may be relaxed and modern, on sale in high-end boutiques, but they celebrate centuries-old craft techniques. Working with hand-spun yarn, hand-woven and naturally dyed fabrics, and unified by their love of indigo, these designers are transforming the fortunes of local artisans – realising that what they need is not aid but work crafting exquisitely detailed, quality clothing. We spotlight five conscious labels to follow. Spirit of Threads; Slowstitch Studio; Suzusan; SukkhaCitta & KOTÓ ensayos textiles Please read the entire article on issue 117, Will be published on 15 February. Link to pre-order https://www.selvedge.org/products/issue-117-irresistible-preorder

COMING NEXT - 117 Irresistible For Mira Gupta, as she writes in her article “Lessons in Chemistry,” “There’s something thrilling about resist dyeing. You control the dye but not the result. It’s like controlled chaos, a surprise party in every vat.” Such a boldly colourful assertion prompted me to question what it is it about resist dyeing that makes it irresistible. When Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama brought vibrant hand-painted palampores back from India in 1498, Europeans, used to humble wool, linen, and hemp, were mesmerised. This was the beginning of a violent trade that climaxed 100 years later with the establishment of various “East India Companies” and the peaking of the “calico craze,” in the late 17th century. So, is it the spectrum available via a mordant-and-resist sequence that makes resist dyeing irresistible? Remember, indigo is a pigment dye, impossible to apply to the surface of cloth using a brush or a block. So, to achieve a blue and white design, it is necessary to create a mechanical or chemical resist and submerge the cloth in a dye bath. In her article “True Blue,” Liz Hoggard uncovers contemporary brands mastering the techniques to produce slow fashion favourites. Is it an abundance of the world’s favourite colour combinations that makes resist dye irresistible? Human beings are hard-wired to find patterns everywhere. Patterns created through resist dyeing are found all over the world, and from intricate multi-coloured ikat in Uzbekistan and the 16-stage process used to create Ajrak in Gujarat. Is it the place it holds in much of humanity’s intangible cultural heritage that makes resist dyeing irresistible? 2024 is the International Year of Batik, see batikinternational.com for details, and in this issue, collector Rudolf Smend explains why he is drawn to the apex of the craft practices in Indonesia. Yet this one technique has many forms of expression, from the Arabic-inspired designs of Nazek Hamdi to th

COLD COMFORT Keeping warm in Siberia It covers eight time zones, stretches from the Ural Mountains in Western Russia to the Pacific coast in the Far East and takes about seven hours to fly across in a jet. Siberia is vast. From the air, much of the northern part of Siberia looks like a wilderness, seemingly endless forest and tundra interspersed by the occasional river, road, town or village. It may appear empty from the air, but it’s home to at least nineteen different groups of indigenous peoples. Some of these cultures have existed there for a thousand years or more. In the Soviet era they were often referred to as the ‘Small Peoples’, the name having more to do with their population than stature.Today, the smallest group are the Entsy, who number just 227 people, while the largest group is the Nenets who have a population of over 44,000. The primary activity of most of these northern Siberian peoples is reindeer breeding, along with hunting, trapping & fishing. It is fur from the reindeer they breed and the animals they hunt and trap, that provides them with the materials they need for making their traditional clothes. Siberia can be bitterly cold during the winter months when temperatures can plummet below -60°C, but native people cope with this by using fur for their winter clothes. Reindeer skin is used by peoples around the Arctic to make coats, parkas, trousers, boots, hats and mittens, as well as bags and household items. It is remarkably durable, as well as being windproof and water repellent. It also offers the best insulation against the cold and is much more effective than goose down or man-made fibres. The reason for this is that reindeer have a thick under fur close to their skin which traps air; and also, reindeer hairs are hollow which gives excellent insulation against even the severe cold of a Siberian winter. Most reindeer skin clothing is made from summer hides as the hair is shorter, making it less bulky. Making skin clothing is a l

Selvedge Bookshelf We have a wide selection of textile books available on our website, and they are currently on sale. Don't miss out on our January sale with 30% off when you buy any book from our bookstore with the code: BOOKSALE24. The offer ends at midnight on 31 January 2024. https://www.selvedge.org/collections/books

AN ENDURING LEGACY "While darning, we would be told to sit cross-legged on the floor and in the centre of a room, so there was no resting the back against the wall, so we would always be alert! Leaning against a wall was believed to lead to laziness! It was tough."-Waseem Ahmed. Please find the article on issue 116 by clicking on this link https://www.selvedge.org/products/issue-116-uncut

ISSUE 116 UNCUT IS OUT NOW AND AVAILABLE ON OUR WEBSITE. At the recent Selvedge Wardrobe Revolution Weekend symposium, our conversation revolved around the concept of value. Scarcity and value were comfortable bedfellows in a pre-industrial society, but today, when we live in a world of abundance, what to do and how we assign value is a more challenging question. This quandary accounts in part for the resurgence of craft in the 21st century and perhaps why we struggle with the concept of intangible cultural heritage in the UK, as outlined by David Carpenter in his article “Culture Wars: Crafts’ Colonial Legacy.” Craft skills can be used to tackle the endemic problem of landfills when they are employed to upcycle waste into valuable new products, as illustrated by Ash*ta Singhal of Piawand. We explored mending in all its various forms. Kate Sekules gives value to throw-away fossil-fibre-derived fast fashion with visible mending. In this issue, Brinda Gill examines the invisible mending techniques of the Rafoogars of Najubabad, India. Corinne Julius interviewed Celia Pym, the mother of modern mending and discovered contemporary consumers' appetite for visible darning. In her article, “The Great Uncut,” Sarah E. Braddock Clarke highlights wasteful and wasteless pattern cutting and signposts non-Western clothing construction as a more conscious approach. Garments that maintain the uncut cloth's integrity are inherently less wasteful and more flexible than conventional cut-and-sew construction, as we see in Rta Kapur Chishti’s article on the sari, beautifully illustrated by Paula Sanz Caballero. In this issue, we consider uncut cloth in its multiple forms, including the significance of the turban in Sikh culture and question its adoption as a fashion accessory. The hijab, a site of political protest in contemporary Iran, is scrutinised. As is The Kashmir shawl an example of a global commodity linked to colonialism and consumerism. The colonial trade in clo

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SELVEDGE CHRISTMAS FAIR 🌲🤍🌲 The day finally arrives!! We are waiting for you at the fair come to have a coffee with us and enjoy our exhibitors and workshops. From 10 to 6pm Selvedge Christmas Fair St Mary's Church, Marylebone, Wyndham Pl, York St, London W1H 1PQ.