Liberty Style

Liberty Style

There is no better example of “overdoing” home décor than that of Victorian aesthetics.  The second half of the 19thC saw, in Europe, and, especially in the United Kingdom, the rise of a middle class.  Education in all aspects ( science, art, literature) was highly regarded and Victorians were determined to display their broadened knowledge.  Great interest in natural history produced collections of all types of flora and fauna, actual specimens as well as those represented in the visual arts.  These collections were proudly displayed along with tokens of world travel , archaeological relics, textiles and anything vaguely resembling ethnic cultures.  Especially the styles of Egypt and the Orient were considered to be in high decorative taste.  Japanese-style decorations were soon the rage and were living happily with elements of the Aesthetic Movement which emphasized “Art for art’s sake”. There was not a parlor or sitting room in any proper Victorian household that was not chock-a-block with knick-knacks and collectibles covering every horizontal surface.  Of course, the furniture surfaces were first covered with every form of textile, from imported rugs and fabrics to handmade doilies and antimaccasars   It was not important that other rooms of the house were left unfurnished, the “public” rooms showed one’s taste and breeding, apparently.

This excessive overindulgence was soon to be replaced with a completely different aesthetic that focused on “form”.

In 1875 Arthur Lansby Liberty (1843-1917) opened his shop Liberty & Co, on Regent Street, London.  His stock of imported merchandise, especially that found in “The Eastern Bazaar” section of the emporium was immediately popular and allowed Liberty to successfully enlarge his operation. However, towards the end of the century there was a definite shift in the aesthetic of home décor and Liberty sought to establish a new look, featuring the highest quality of original design and purity of form.  This would become known as “Liberty Style”.

Liberty Style : The Classic Years 1898-1910

Mervyn Levy, Rizzoli, NY,1986

Liberty Style was developed by designer-craftsmen such as C.F.A. Voysey, Christopher Dresser, Arthur Silver and others employed by Liberty.  Soon, Liberty began selling fabrics that were exclusively commissioned and produced for the firm.

Today Liberty of London remains an icon of tasteful design décor and a visit is a must for those traveling to London.  I most enjoy the huge array of luxurious fabrics , an entire floor of textile delight.

The Magic of Stinging Nettle Fibers

Magic Cloth of Nettle Fiber

For many years I have been collecting stories from literature and cultural folklore concerning textiles that contain magical properties.  The magic may be due to technique, the creator of the fabric, some supernatural intervention or the fibers used.

One of my favorite fairy tales is called Wild Swans ( also 12 Swans or, sometimes,  12 Princes) by Hans Christian Anderson..  In this story, a beautiful princess weaves shirts made from the fibers of the stinging nettle plant for her brothers.  The young princes had been changed into wild swans by their wicked stepmother.  When the shirts were pulled over their heads the birds became young men again.  These wonderfully soft shirts, made of something so unlikely, could reverse magical spells and endowed the wearers with magical powers.

Stinging nettle, Urtica dioica, is a herbaceous perennial 1-2 meters in height, found abundantly in northern Europe and Asia, less commonly found in Canada and US.

The underside of the leaves have slender hairs containing several toxic chemicals which are released when brush against., hence its name.   The textile fiber is a bast fiber found in the stem and is processed like flax. The finished fabric has a soft hand and has been used for bed linens and clothing. 

Nettle yarn

Asian woman knitting with nettle fiber

  Nettle, which was still used widely in northern, central and eastern Europe into the 20thC, was found in a Danish tomb dating to 1,000BCE.  White fibers found at archeological sites which had been thought to be flax have been shown much later to be nettle.  When Germany and Austria ran short of cotton during WWII, the value of nettle was recognized and 2 species were chosen for textiles.  It is estimated Germany harvested over two thousand tons of wild nettle to weave fabric for their soldiers.

Nettle has also been used as a food product.  The toxicity is destroyed with cooking.  When my husband and I traveled to Istanbul several years ago we were served nettle as a vegetable.  I must confessed I was rather under-whelmed, it was much like cooked spinach.

Prehistoric and Early Textiles References by Elizabeth Wayland Barber

Elizabeth Wayland Barber

When I began my journey through textile history I quickly realized there were several paths one could take. I could see the advantage in specializing in one particular area such as costume, or one particular period of time, such as medieval textiles.  For me, the problem with that approach is that you then sacrifice the overall picture of how everything (history, culture, economics, climate…everything) interacts.  Sort of not seeing the forest.  I felt I would be better served with an overall study, if, then, later I could specialize. Following the example of art history where one is introduced to art from prehistoric to contemporary ( sort of Art History 101).  I began categorizing my research into time periods, each of which was subdivided .  I have to confess I continued to collect information on any aspect of textile history, attending any workshops and lectures, classes and museum exhibits that I could find.  Slowly, I was able to make some organization of all the materials and now I can file information and actually find relevant material for lectures etc.

Starting with my Textile History 101, I found the works of Elizabeth Wayland Barber, a professor of linguistics and archeology.  Her work with prehistoric and early textiles is so very impressive and her reference books provide information that is easily understood, despite their academic format.  Valuable sections of bibliographies, notes and lists of additional readings allow further research, if necessary.  I have turned to her expertise time and again over the years.

I have been fortunate to have attended several lectures by Ms Barber.  She is an energetic, knowledgeable, and great speaker and I thank her for contributing  to my foundation of textile studies.

Prehistoric Textiles:  The Development of Cloth in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, E. W. Barber, Princeton University press, 1991

               
                                 
Women's Work : The First 20,000 Years,
E. W. Barber, W.W. Norton & Co., NY, 1994

The Mummies of Urumchi, E. W. Barber, W.W. Norton & Co., NY,1999

  

Other works by E/W.B.:  World Textiles

                                        When They Severed the Earth from the Sky

                                       The Dancing Goddesses

                                       Resplendent Dress from Southeastern Europe 

A Wondrous Prehistoric Net

A Short Historical Trip

As an historian I take short trips back through time nearly every day.  But 2 weeks ago my family and I took a brief trip back into New Mexico history.  A very good friend, Dr. Enid Margolies , had learned that my husband’s daughter, Hillary, was visiting and invited her to a tour of the permanent collection at the Indian Arts and Culture Museum.  Enid is so very knowledgeable about the museum and its collections that I gladly accepted the invitation for all of us.

(Note to all of you: if you are asked to join a museum docent tour, regardless of the museum, do it!  Docents add immeasurable knowledge to any museum visit.  You may think of yourself as an expert but you will be commenting “I never knew that” within the first minutes of your tour.)

But back to our private tour.  The Museum of Indian Arts and Culture is part of the New Mexico Museum Foundation and is located on what is known as “Museum Hill”, a short bus ride from Santa Fe Plaza.  They have, as could well be expected, a large, impressive collection which includes many textiles.

But one of my favorites is a large hunting net.  I have spoken about this particular textile several times in lectures.   Kate Peck Kent (1914-1987),  a professor of anthropology, wrote in Prehistoric Textiles of the Southwest   ” in 1960 archeologists working in a cave in southern NM found a prehistoric hunting net that measured 150 feet long and 5 feet high….1.54 miles of cordage, made entirely of human hair and over 19,000 individual knots, weighing 7.25#.  To create a net of this kind required more than 65 full heads of hair.”   I would imagine not many museum-goers would guess the fiber of that net.  The net had never been used and there is some speculation as to the reason it had been stored in the cave.

Humans have been looping and knotting threads since prehistoric times.  Linen nets over 10,000 years old have been unearthed in what is now Switzerland and excavations in other parts of the world have revealed bags, fish nets, hunting snares and mesh garments.

Nets were believed to have the power both to protect and cure and, conversely, to pursue and devour. 

If you are in the Santa Fe area a visit to the museums of the New Mexico Museum Foundation is a must.

Textile Gardens

Garden Bouquets

Some years it seems as though spring takes a bit longer to arrive.  False promises are dashed by cold un-spring-like days.  This year we had, in Santa Fe, some lovely weather in early spring followed by cold days and heavy winds that brought much dust instead of rain.  Finally, it seems as if we are on the right track and folks are preparing their gardens, cleaning their yards and descending on garden stores and nurseries.

I, too, have planted a few flowers, but do admit I am generally not in the running for gardener of the year.  For those of you who live in apartments, on boats or are still shoveling snow I offer some flowering thoughts, flowers on textiles, that is.

Floral motifs have always been a predominant theme for textile design. Textiles from lace to embroideries and embellishments, from vintage to contemporary, from all ethnic groups, have floral displays of botanicals (real and sometimes imagined).

Today I present to you several books from my reference library which illustrate the various textile interpretations of floral design.

A  Needleworker's Botany, Heather S. Miller,

Fifty examples of early botanical art from the library of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society.

 Lace, Heather Toomer, B.T.Batsforf Ltd, London, 1989

A guide to identification of old lace types and techniques.

 Flowers of Silk and Gold, Sumru Belger Krody, The Textile Museum, Washington, DC, Merrill Publishers Limited, 2000

Four centuries of Ottoman embroidery

The Embroiderer's Flowers, Thomasina Beck, David and Charles, 1992

"A feast of inspiration for all lovers of embroidery".

William Morris Textiles, Linda Parry,Weidenfelf and Nicolson, London, 1983

"A comprehensive survey of the many original, colourful textiles produced by Morris & Co..  Included is a fully illustrated, definitive checklist of Morris & Co.'s patterns for printed textiles."

Opulent Textiles - The Schumacher Collection, Richard E. Slavin III, Crown Publishers, Inc., NY, 1992

"This exquisite full-color volume highlights the artistic creativity and high quality for which Schumacher fabrics have been known over the past hundred years."

Russian Textiles - Printed Cloth for the Bazaars of Central Asia, Susan Meller, Abrams, NY, 2007

"Gorgeous, printed cotton fabrics created and manufactured in Russia from about 1860-1960 specifically for export to Central Asia."

These are only a few from my collection.  There are hundreds of publications featuring textiles available for your reading enjoyment.  Visit your local library or bookstore for a touch of textile gardens.

Designs from Paradise Revisited

Last summer I wrote three blogs on the subject of Aloha Shirts from Hawaii, entitled Designs from Paradise.
6/21/13,  7/16/13,   7/26/13

Much to my surprise I read in the Wall Street Journal , Saturday/Sunday, April 5-6, 2014 an article in the Style and Fashion Section entitled "Lei It On".

Author Christopher Tennant noted well-known fashion houses were interested this season in the wardrobe icon of the 50's, The Aloha Shirt.  He quoted the expert, Dale Hope and told a bit of the history of Hawaiian casual wear.
He even explored the secondary market in vintage Hawaiian design clothing.

Now, I might wonder if one of my favorite references for this blog, might be referencing me!

Malaysian Batik 2

Malaysia- Batik 2

Batik is a method of design using wax resist. The origins of this design technique remain unclear. We know this process dates back to Egyptian times, nearly 2,000 years ago, from samples found in Egyptian tombs.  Some believe SE Asian batiks originated in India as India produced the fine cotton necessary for the fine detailing of the designs.

The word “batik” comes from Malay “tik” meaning spot,dot or drop.  There are over 3,000 batik designs, which are grouped as follows:

1. geometric: garis miring, ceplokan, kawang, tumpal, and tambal miring (a kind of patchwork design believed to have magical properties.)
2. non-geometric: semen (swirling foliage with stylized animals and birds, cloud designs)
3. isen : simple, repetitive  background designs found in the less expensive batiks

Motifs were inspired by culture, religion and nature.  There are few contemporary batik motifs, instead the tradition continues with the continued use of traditional designs.

One method of applying the resist is the use of a “canting”(Tjanting), a small copper vessel with a spout, resembling the bowl of a pipe with an attached handle.  Cantings may have more than one spout in parallel.  The bowl is filled with the molten wax (made from beeswax and paraffin) and holding the tool like a stylus the artist draws the design with the wax flowing from the spout.  This type of batik is referred  to as Tulis, meaning to write or draw. Since true batik is reversible, the waxing process must be repeated on the reverse side. The artist draws freehand and, therefore, Tulis batik may be very intricate.

Because producing designs with a canting is very time-consuming, batik artists may use a metal block made of strips of thin copper set upright soldered to a metal base with a curved metal handle. Using this metal tool (called a “cap”) dipped into molten wax, a single worker could stamp up to 20 lengths of cloth per day as each cap consists of the entire design element.  Several caps of different sizes and shapes could be used, with as many as ten pairs of caps needed for complex designs

After the waxing, the first dying is done using a combination of chemical and natural dyes.  After the initial dying, wax from the areas next to be dyed is scraped away or reapplied for additional dyeing.  Once all color has been applied the fabric is washed and soaked in as fixing solution.  Thorough rinsing follows and a boiling water bath melts remaining wax, which is then saved.