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Due to circumstances we unfortunately have to remain closed to the public on Friday 11th September. But please feel welcome during the weekend, when we open for the Open Monumentendagen, Saturday from 12.00 - 17.00, and Sunday from 10.00 to 17.00.

The TRC, Boerhaavelaan 6, LeidenDuring the weekend of 12 and 13 September 2026, thirty-five monuments in Leiden open their doors to the public. This is a unique opportunity to visit old sites rich in history, ancient homes and university buildings. Many monuments host small exhibitions as well as performances by choirs and music societies from Leiden. This year’s theme is Resilient Heritage. Take a look behind the scenes of the restoration of buildings – discover how Leiden’s heritage is alive and kicking.

One of the monuments open to the public is the home of the Textile Research Centre, Boerhaavelaan 6. On Saturday we are open between 12.00 and 17.00, on Sunday between 10.00 and 17.00. A special TRC blog about the house and the family that occupied it since the 1920s can be downloaded here. The blog tells more about Prof. Barge, a former Chancellor of Leiden University, who lived here until his death in 1952, but also about the wartime years when the house was confiscated by the German occupying forces and made into their Ortskommandantur.

The TRC moved into the building, now owned by the Stichting Monumentenbezit, in  April 2026, and this weekend visitors can see the inside the building and enjoy a small exhibition about the paisley motif, its origins and use throughout the world.

Information about the building on the official Monumentendag website can be downloaded here.

The TRC would love to welcome you this weekend.

Poster for the Andy Warhol exhibition, now extended until 8 November. Museum Cobra, Sandbergplein 1, Amstelveen.Until Sunday, 8 November 2026, Museum Cobra in Amstelveen in The Netherlands presents an exhibition with the title 'Andy Warhol, The Textiles'. TRC friend and volunteer, Loren Mealey, went to see the exhibition in Amstelveen and she wrote the following blog:

When we think of Andy Warhol, we think of Campbell’s Soup Cans, Coca-Cola bottles, Marilyn Monroe and the bright, bold world of Pop Art. Before all of that, though, Warhol was illustrating something quite different: textiles.

Left: “Happy Butterfly Day”. Printed silk, circa 1955-56. Manufacturer unknown; Right: “Large Butterflies”. Printed cotton, circa 1955-56. D. B. Fuller & Co., Inc.In the 1950s and early 1960s, long before he became one of the most recognisable artists of the twentieth century, Warhol was a successful commercial illustrator and graphic designer in New York City. He created playful textile patterns filled with ice-cream cones, candy apples, lemons, butterflies, flowers, pretzels, shoes, buttons and even circus clowns. They are cheerful, whimsical and unmistakably of their time. If observed closely, you can already see the beginnings of the Warhol we know today.

What is particularly appealing about these designs is their colourful combination of simplicity and repetition. Warhol took an ordinary object, reduced it to its essential shape, and then repeated it across the fabric. The same butterfly might appear again and again, but each one will show a tiny difference. A line shifts. A shape changes slightly. A colour lands differently.

Then there is the line. Warhol had developed his distinctive “blotted line” technique while still a student and refined it during his years as a commercial illustrator. The process was quite simple. He traced an image in ink on a non-absorbent sheet and then pressed it against another sheet of paper, transferring the ink. The result was a broken, slightly uneven line: part drawing, part print.

Open Monumentendagen Leiden 12-13 September 2026People are back from holiday and things are on the move again at the TRC. Marlies de Groot, who runs the TRC workshops, etc., is adding more and more events to the TRC Agenda. There are going to be some very interesting and inspirational workshops.

We would like to draw your attention to two upcoming, specific events!

The first is Open Monumentendagen, a national weekend whereby monumental buildings throughout the Netherlands are open to the public. The TRC and Boerhaavelaan 6 were open for the first time during Open Monumentendagen in September in 2025 and we will be open again in a few weeks time! The weekend is 12-13 September.

On the Saturday we will be open from 12.00 until 17.00, while on Sunday the TRC opens its doors from 10.00 until 17.00. You are more than welcome to come and see the building, hear about its history, as well as see the TRC’s latest exhibition that is about that well-known global icon, the paisley motif.

Special min-exhibition: Sacred textiles from Mecca and Medina, created with the help of the Turkish community in Leiden.The other event is very special. From the 20th September the TRC is presenting a mini-exhibition about ‘Sacred Textiles from Mecca and Medina’. It will be a rare opportunity to see woven and embroidered textiles associated with the Kiswah, the silk cover of the Kaaba, in Mecca (Saudi Arabia) and one of the most holy places within the Islamic World.

There will also be on display some textiles that are placed around the tomb of the Prophet Mohammed in the Al-Masjid an-Nabawi, Medina, as well as photographs of the textiles in situ, etc.

The exhibition is being created with the help of several private collectors, as well as the local Turkish community here in Leiden. We have come together with the aim of raising funds to purchase a storage unit in the TRC’s proposed annex that will be used to house the TRC’s extensive Ottoman and regional Turkish textile and clothing collection.

Please note that this mini-exhibition is only on view for one month, and we are asking for a voluntary donation of a minimum of €5 per person that will go towards the annex fund!

On 31 August, the TRC opened its doors for a new exhibition: Paisley: The History of a Global Icon (by the curator, Augusta de Gunzbourg)

The new Paisley exhibition at the TRC. Photograph by the curator, Augusta de Gunzbourg.We all know the motif, that cone shape that is curved at the top, which is found on Kashmir shawls, men’s ties, 1970’s hippie prints, or even on cowboy bandanas. Paisley is everywhere !

It is so well-known that it is generally accepted as just being one of those patterns that have always been there, but we rarely think think about its origins and why it is so popular all over the world.

The TRC exhibition is a re-edited, expanded version of one of its past, and online exhibitions (interrupted by the COVID-pandemic) about the famous Paisley motif, and this time mounted in the TRC's new premises along the Boerhaavelaan (No.6) in Leiden.

The exhibition explores the history of the Paisley motif, its ancient origins and its development to the present day. It also looks at how it is currently used for a wide variety of textiles and garments all over the globe.

Click on the illustration to open the brochure.The TRC has made a new brochure about its background, its vision, and its intentions for the future. The brochure is especially aimed at European companies and individuals that want to support the TRC. The brochure also lists the countries where the organisation 'GivingEurope' can help the potential sponsors with information about attractive tax benefits.

These countries include Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland. The brochure also gives information about sponsors from the. USA, who can direct their donations via Myrad USA, which will organise the tax benefits. Potential sponsors from The Netherlands can address the Cultuurfonds.

Joost Kolkman and Ray Raymakers produced a lovely brochure about the TRC, but also about the importance and attraction of textiles. The brochure can be downloaded here. A printed version is also available, and can be obtained from the TRC.

Tapestry fragment from Coptic Egypt, c. 4th century AD (TRC 2025.0012), Titia Huisman bequest.Are you a lover of textiles? Have you been to the TRC and enjoyed your visit? Do you want to support the future of textile and clothing studies and education, both here in the Netherlands and elsewhere?

If yes, then please think about including the Stichting Textile Research Centre (TRC Leiden) in your testament. We are a Culturele ANBI, which means any donation made within the Netherlands is exempt from inheritance tax, so 100% of your donation would come to the TRC!

Please note that a hand-written document is not allowed. This type of donation in a will needs to be drawn up by a notary. You will need the following information: Stichting Textile Research Centre, Boerhaavelaan 6, 2334 EN, Leiden, The Netherlands, registered with the Dutch Chamber of Commerce under the number 41168554.

We have already been mentioned in various wills with respect to the donation of objects, but funding is equally important to make sure that our many activities can continue!

Something to think about! For more information please do not hesitate to get in contact with me, Dr Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

(Po Chun Hsu [Travis], 1 August 2026) It has been a few weeks since the workshop, and the colours of the memory are still so alive. I can vividly recall all of us sitting in the garden with Dr Gillian in the shade, spinning and learning to weave just as people would have done in earlier times: in a circle, leaning in and working together as a family. The five-day intensive course was an intimate and enriching experience that altered many of my perspectives on textiles, interweaving hands-on practice such as spinning, weaving, and dyeing, with a genuine skill set in textile appreciation, immediately applicable to textile studies, further academic pursuit, and textile connoisseurship.

I would like to start by highly recommending this course to anyone interested in textiles, whether you are an expert or just beginning the journey, to textile and fashion designers, or to anyone who simply wants to acquire an appreciation of what we wear every day. Dr. Gillian's passion and immense expertise made a course already magical in its own right, set in a culturally layered townhouse that encompasses Leiden's own history, now home to world textiles from all kinds of cultures and all walks of life, all the more memorable and lasting for a textile student. It was also a wonderful experience to study under a world-class expert in a subject she is passionate about. It’s moving, and there are always takeaways studying under a master like that.

The course is structured on a linear foundation and framework. We started from an introduction to the common fibre materials and progressed into textile analysis as we became equipped with material-identification skills. Over the first few days, Dr. Gillian built us up from the organic fibres such as cotton, silk, wool, and flax toward the more technically complex synthetic ones, and let us find our own way into the materials through scientific approaches, with microscopes and magnifying glasses; we ran countless tests on dyes and on the ashes of burnt threads, forming a rounded view of how to differentiate materials.

As we proceeded, Gillian provided generous assistance tailored to every student's needs: she explained genuinely difficult concepts in the simplest terms, expanded on the special areas individual participants were curious about, and recommended wonderfully handy textile books for future research. As an art history student who had read some of the standard books on textiles, I found her explanations exactly on point and easy to understand. My sincere advice: take the course, then reread everything. The books come alive differently once your own hands have spun, woven, and dyed. Her approach created a wonderful space for participants to thrive at their own pace and learn comfortably across the fundamental areas of textile study.

The last three days were an exhilarating journey for textile lovers. We roamed from Italy and France to Rome, Egypt, Iran, Japan, China, India, and Indonesia, from the Neolithic period to modern and contemporary production, learning how textiles were used and appreciated, and how to identify and cross-examine them through their techniques and terminology. Having handled samples of every nameable textile technique in the first days, this became a full-circle moment for many of us, as the fruits of our learning grew evident. I was extremely happy to find I could now differentiate damask, brocade, and lampas, questions that had been stuck in my head for a very long time. Delighted as I was, I also realised I could never go back to the perspective I held before the course, which has since caused serious trouble when shopping and at museums, gazing at dresses that sit so far behind the glass. The course ended with Gillian's first collected textile (the Egyptian fragment bought with a week's allowance) and maid-work rolls that documented everything the girls learned from needlework schools, which was an encouraging and heartfelt endnote for all of us still learning on this path.

I would love to recommend this course to anyone interested: it fundamentally alters your perspective and offers practical skills, accessible research resources, an open and culturally layered learning space, and an amazing experience at a wonderful price for everything it gave me. The place has all my blessings, and I can definitely see myself coming back to the TRC for more.

The Textile Research Centre (TRC) in Leiden runs regular intensive courses. Details and booking are available on the TRC website.

The remaining dates for 2026 and 2027 are: 12-16 Oct.; 22-26 Febr.; 19-23 April; 21-25 June; 23-27 Aug.; 25-29 Oct.