What Clothes Reveal
You know the image of our industrious forebears — After studying textile history for the last 20 years, I had a hazy idea that that image casts our ancestors in a glorified light,… Continue reading
Category Archive: Historic Textiles
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Three Clues in the Parchment
In the early 1960s, a young agriculture historian named M. L. Ryder had the idea to use parchment manuscripts to research medieval sheep breeds. He surveyed manuscript illuminations for evidence of the colors,… Continue reading
Dress Diary 1855-1917
A few days ago, when I was looking at the Hollywood costume sketches at the Brooklyn Museum, I noticed this wonderful dress diary in their archives. The diary’s owner, Ida Jackson, was born… Continue reading
The Cloth Antiquary
What do you do when there’s no Wikipedia page? In my last three posts, I have given you some small samples from the 1936 book, The Romance of French Weaving. There are so… Continue reading
A Treasury of Textiles
Today is Bastille Day, and while the crowds outside are celebrating with music and fireworks, let’s slip down a cool dim hallway to lose ourselves in a treasury of French craftsmanship. From 1732… Continue reading
Rules, Routines, and the Restraint of Initiative
Today I am going to let M. Paul Rodier show us The Romance of French Weaving with a little tour of Paris on the thirteenth century. The king, Louis IX, later known as… Continue reading
The Mystery of Charlemagne’s Missing Textiles
Here’s a little puzzle to start things off: La chaine est soie, la trame poil de chèvre, matiere qui fournit la chèvre du Thibet et que nous connaissons sous le nom de cachemire.… Continue reading
Disappointed in Research
Back in 2012, I was reading the Iliad with an online group, and I was amazed when I got to these lines about the famous Helen: She [Iris] came on Helen in the… Continue reading
Textiles in Hiding
At the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force in Pooler, Georgia, among all the aircraft and equipment, is an exhibit that shows the stories of pilots downed behind enemy lines. One… Continue reading
Shadows of the Past
Three years ago when I was photographing this dress from the 1800s, I got to wondering how it would look by candlelight, the way it was seen when it was new, 170 years… Continue reading