'A journey through ASEAN textiles', Malaysian Residence, Wassenaar, 3 May 2023.
It's been quite an international week at the TRC in Leiden, and more is expected next week!
Knitting sampler from Hungary, 1791 (TRC 2016.2261).We have been adopted by Robert Spiegelman from the US, who for a long time has been coming to Leiden every year for six weeks. Robert has been introducing family and friends to the TRC and they are now actively looking for help for the TRC in the US. It's good to know how the TRC can appeal to a wide range of people and backgrounds.
Then Jane Malcolm-Davies Jane (Copenhagen University, Denmark), a specialist in historic textile techniques, came on Monday (1st May 2023) to discuss the history of hand knitting and to look at items relating to the TRC’s 17th century silk stocking project that was led by Chrystel Brandenburg, Leiden City archaeologist.
The TRC was also involved in the related, British Knitting Forum conference held in Leiden in November 2019. One of the suggestions made by Jane was that the TRC should become an international centre for knitting history!
We are already working on a knitting reference collection, but the idea of the TRC expanding its activities into an international centre for the study of this form of textiles was an interesting and intriguing concept for me to think about!
Stall with Malaysian traditional textiles, The Hague, 3 May 2023. Photograph by the author.We would need a much more comprehensive knitting collection and, given everything else that is going on, a considerably bigger building with teaching, meeting and storage facilities! (I suspect I may have muttered about this before). But as Leiden was a centre for hand knitting in the 17th century, such a resource would make Leiden even more important as an historical textile knowledge hub. We will have to think really hard about this idea!
For the last few days we were very busy preparing for an event on Wednesday, 3rd May 2023, organised by HE Dato’ Nadzirah Osman, Ambassador of Malaysia (The Hague) at the Malaysian Residence in Wassenaar.
The event was a get-together of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) ambassadors and spouses and other distinguished guests to discuss ASEAN textiles and dress, preservation of craft skills, and the passing on of knowledge.
There were various ambassadors and partners present from, among others, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Sri Lanka, as well as Costa Rica and Germany. The guest of honour was Liselot Hoornweg, wife of the Dutch Foreign Minister.
Mrs Le Thi Hien Anh, wife of the ambassador of Vietnam, with the author, 3 May 2023. Photograph by Rebecca Hix.I was asked to give a 45 minute talk entitled ‘A journey through ASEAN textiles’, a theme that was expanded to include the historic role of over 2000 years of Asian, especially Indian, textiles in the international trade via Africa, the Red Sea coast and the Eastern Mediterranean (many people know of the Silk Road, but the 'Cotton Road’ was equally important and continues to the present day!).
The theme of the talk certainly resonated with the guests and I am very curious what will happen and how everyone can support these important items in the lives of so many people.
The most popular TRC item to be shown during my talk was a so-called Manilla embroidered shawl, which has long historical embroidery roots in China, was exported to ASEAN countries centuries ago, especially to the Philippines (hence the name Manilla shawls), then onto Spain (the colonisers of the Philippines).
From Spain they were turned into the famous mantilla shawls. Then from Spain the Manilla and mantilla shawls went onto Central and South America, and in an interesting twist via Palestinian workers in the Americas, this type of shawl then went to Palestine where it is still an important element in traditional Bethlehem dress! That is the power of textiles and dress – to link cultures in all their many aspects together!
Manilla shawl, from Spain, with Chinese-style embroidery and traditionally made and exported via Manilla on the Philippines (TRC 2012.0015).
There were various stalls with textiles from Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand; some of the textiles and garments were very different, while others were similar, again stressing how textiles reflect our joint cultural heritage experiences. The mannequins dressed in the appropriate regional dress were prepared especially for this event by the TRC.
Ana Pires (centre) and her sister (left) from Portugal, together with the author, TRC, 3 May 2023.Friday (5th May) saw the visit of Ana Pires and her sister from Portugal. Ana is a specialist on Portuguese embroidery and we spent four hours discussing embroidery, bliss.
Ana and her sister are going to help build up a representative collection of Portuguese textiles, embroidery and regional dress to help with Vol. 4 of the Bloomsbury World Encyclopedia of Embroidery, and to make sure Portugal is properly represented in the TRC’s extensive European regional dress collection.
A few weeks ago we had two intern journalists (Leiden University students) from the local newspaper, the Leidsch Dagblad. They interviewed Els Bonte (a volunteer at the TRC) and her sister, Ria. The interview was about a Dutch garment, the feestrok, that celebrates the end of the Second World War (1939-1945) and the bringing together of communities through a patchwork (literally) of colourful scraps of cloth.
'Feestrok', still with its registration stamp, made and worn by Cornelia Sybrandina van Ingen Schenau-Kuiper (Texel 1898-1981). (TRC 2020.3753)Els and Ria brought the skirt they had worn as children in the 1940s and 1950s, and a the skirt of a friend also dating from the 1940s. In addition there were two feestrokken now in the TRC Collection. Very fittingly, the article came out on the 5th May when the Dutch celebrate liberation day.
And as for next week: we are having a visitor from Ireland to look at the TRC’s small collection of Irish laces, we will be asking how to improve it, and on Wednesday we will welcome a group of German cultural heritage students coming especially from Heidelberg to look at various items in the TRC collection, including Chinese and Japanese textiles and garments.
My colleagues, Augusta and Geesje, will be looking after our guests as I am going to Estonia for a week as part of the research needed for volume 5 of the Bloomsbury World Encyclopedia of Embroidery! More about the visit will appear in a blog next week.
Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood, 6 May 2023
