There have been various interesting developments at the TRC. Surprisingly, tea cosies played a major role.  A small exhibition of these mundane objects proves to be a great success with both staff and visitors. It brings a smile to people’s faces. It is amazing how a ‘simple’ object can bring forth so many emotions and stories of an ‘ordinary’ domestic nature.

I must admit I had not realised they were only used from about the 1860’s to the 1990’s, and that their role was usurped by tea bags and tea lights. We had numerous tea cosies at home when I was growing up in Yorkshire, but how many people now use them? It has been fun to hear other people’s cosy stories.

The other day there was an internal group meeting of staff, students and volunteers, who each brought a tea pot and materials to make tea cosies! Something that can be repeated again in the future.

It also highlighted the fact that we have very few modern sewing machines at the TRC (more about this shortly) and more importantly, what sort of sewing machines would be required if the TRC was to organise a series of workshops based around machine sewing? Basic level sewing, repairs, quilting and patchwork have been suggested. Other suggestions would be welcome as we are currently expanding the 2027 workshop series!

Which reminds me, on Saturday 28th November our Textile fellow, Flóra Kovács-Wester, will be giving a talk about her research into the TRC’s collection of Japanese kasuri (ikat) textiles. There are still places available if you would like to attend her talk.

In addition, although some weeks ago we just finished the 5-day course, on the 20-26 February we will again be running the TRC’s acclaimed, five-day intensive textile course. There are still several places available if you are interesting in joining. Please let us know. The same course will be repeated several times in 2027.

We have also been discussing the possibilities of a Princeton University Press/TRC textile series – would one on tea cosies be an idea? Actually, yes, it would, but who would write it? And yes, more about this idea for a book series will be published in a few weeks time.

Which brings me to another snippet of news, Augusta, our Education and Exhibition Officer, is busy with the next TRC exhibition, which is called ‘A World of Ikat’ and which will open in February 2027. It looks not just at East Asian ikat (especially Indonesian forms), but also Central Asian, Middle Eastern and Turkish, European, as well as Central and South American forms! There will be both technical information as well as many examples to see and gain inspiration from.

We have recently been given a most welcome collection of textiles and clothing by Elizabet Nijhoff-Asser. The objects derive from her late husband's collection and shop, Astamangala, (Amsterdam). It has numerous items from Tibet and Bhutan. The Tibetan items include horse or mule decorations that were worn on the heads of the lead animals for various trading caravans. These pile textiles often had a Buddhist symbol and were intended as amulets to protect the caravans. We are planning a mini-exhibition about these pieces in the spring of 2027. I wonder if we will get any memories about horse trappings and caravans.

And last, but by no means least: Various people have been in contact with me about becoming a Friend of the TRC – details were published a few weeks ago (click the link) and there is a growing number of people who are willing to become Friends and support the TRC's growing range of events, workshops, etc. If you would like to become a Friend, then please contact me at Dit e-mailadres wordt beveiligd tegen spambots. JavaScript dient ingeschakeld te zijn om het te bekijken..

Today, Tineke van Oosten came to see the Paisley exhibition and brought with her a small group of textiles that she wondered if the TRC would be interested in having. They included something I had long wanted for the TRC Collection, namely a traditional outfit from the Philippines. It was a wedding outfit worn by the grandmother of Mary Anne Pasumbal, a Philippine woman living in Indonesia, which some years ago had been given to Tineke van Oosten. The outfit is special because it is made of piňa or pineapple thread, a traditional thread and cloth product in the Philippines. The outfit is made up of a blouse with upright sleeves and made of embroidered gauze, a kerchief, also of embroidered gauze), a long, starched skirt, made of a fine piňa cloth, and a long slip made out of silk or possibly an early synthetic material. These pieces will be added to the TRC Collection in the next few weeks. I wonder what the next few weeks will bring!

Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood, Director

On Saturday 28 November, from 14.00-16.00 hours, Flóra Kovács-Wester, fellow at the TRC, will be giving a talk about "Threads, dyes and patterns: Japanese kasuri weaving, with examples from the TRC collection." Entrance is free, and coffee and tea will be provided.

Flora is the first of the fellows sponsored by the Gieskes-Strijbis Fonds. She started work at the TRC in April, and in this lecture she will talk about her research and the results of her work.

Two more fellows of the fellowship programme have been appointed, and an announcement for two more fellows was published this week. The TRC hopes to welcome our new fellows by the spring of next year.

Flora wrote about her first two months at the TRC in a blog that was published on 23 May, and she organised a workshop on Kasuri weaving on 30 October. She also wrote about recent acquisitions of kasuri weaving for the TRC collection (12 October).

Can you let us know whether we can welcome you? Please write to: Dit e-mailadres wordt beveiligd tegen spambots. JavaScript dient ingeschakeld te zijn om het te bekijken.

The Textile Research Centre at Boerhaavelaan 6, Leiden.For three years, starting mid-2026, the Textile Research Centre, Leiden, the Netherlands, is offering a total of seven junior and four senior fellowships for up to six months each. Three fellows have already started working in Leiden (compare an interim report by Flora Kovacs-Wester), and in this call we hope to attract more candidates for a fascinating stay next year at the TRC in the historic textile city of Leiden.

The fellowships are being sponsored by the Gieskes-Strijbis Foundation, Amsterdam. Fellows are invited to carry out research based on the TRC’s extensive textiles and dress collection of more than 56,000 items (click here for the online catalogue), most of which directly accessible inside the TRC building. The junior fellows are supervised and assisted by TRC staff; senior fellows carry out independent research.

For this round, two positions are offered, one junior and one senior fellowship, starting in the spring of  2027, for a duration of up to 6 months.

Application deadline is Wednesday 16 December 2026. The selection process will be completed by mid-January and applicants will be informed by 1 February. Fellowships may start from April/May, or later, depending on personal circumstances.

(Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood, 3 November 2026) It has been a busy, international ‘networking’ period for the TRC. In September, for example, my colleague, Augusta de Gunzbourg, was invited to Uzbekistan for a conference on Uzbek ikat heritage. In October, I travelled to Tbilisi, Georgia, for a 3-day conference entitled Living Heritage (22-24 October 2026), which was set up to discuss Georgian textile heritage, crafts and their future. It was organised by the Ministry of Culture, the Tbilisi State Academy of Art, and Erasmus (EU).

Participants of the Tbilisi conference, October 2026.

Showcase with a selection of tea cosies; Temporary mini exhibition at the TRC.(1 November 2026) The TRC has a small collection of 25 tea cosies, once to be found in any European household. Recently one of the TRC student/volunteers, Tina Morthier, made a small exhibition of these items, in the context of the TRC training and educational programme. The display can be seen until the end of November in a special showcase on the ground floor of the TRC building.

Tea cosies became popular in Western Europe in the mid-nineteenth century (the first occurrence of the word seems to date from that period) and they were used to keep the tea pot warm and at the same time to show off needlework and knitting skills. Their use died out in the late 20th century with the wide-spread introduction of tea bags.

The display includes, among others, a crazy patchwork cosy from Australia, from 1892 (TRC 2023.1883), a cosy in the shape of a country cottage from Great Britain, from the early 20th century (TRC 2025.0429), a beaded tea cosy from 19th century Europe (TRC 2024.3105), and a knitted cosy from the 1960s, Australia (TRC 2023.1884).

And what about a small, black and hand embroidered cosy from early 20th century Netherlands (TRC 2019.2825)?

This brief review of the TRC intensive 5-day textile course of 12-16 October, 2026, was written by one of the participants, Dr Tullia Fraser, assistant curator of the Huang Kam Chak collection, Durham University, UK.

Group photograph of the participants of the TRC Intensive Textile Course, taken in the central hallway of Boerhaavelaan 6, 12-16 October 2026

Last week I attended the Five-Day Intensive Course organised by the Textile Research Centre (TRC), Leiden. Delivered by a formidable team who are such knowledgeable custodians of a ‘living archive’ global collection from which there is much to learn. This experience has inspired new questions and made me look at, research, interpret, teach, talk about (etc.) the textiles in the Huang Kam Chak Yee Collection in an entirely new light: from Late Qing pouches, men’s jackets, to qipao tailored in the 1990s.

This experience feeds into ongoing exciting projects around the Huang Kam Chak Yee Collection, so always more to come. In the meantime, if you are curious about Mrs Huang’s collection, including fashion and foodways, please get in touch.

This mini-exhibition at the TRC is curated by Minsook Kang, who is an intern at the TRC from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. She is a visual artist and researcher working across textiles, moving images, installations and publications. She explores stories, memory, and embodied knowledge through forms of care, attention, and material engagement. In the summer of 2026 she visited the island of Buton in Sulawesi Province, Indonesia. For an extentive blog on the subject, written by Minsook Kang, click here.

A Language of the Hands - Embodied Knowledge and Transmitted Memory in Indonesian Buton Sarongs explores the Buton sarong as a form of embodied and transmitted knowledge.

Drawing on TRC collections and fieldwork in the town of Baubau, the exhibition traces how patterns, motifs, weaving practices, and memories that are  transmitted across generations through speech, observation, and the hands. As a strong oral tradition culture, the sarong emerges as a living textile language shaped by everyday life, nature, and generations of makers.

A Language of the Hands can be visited until 20th of November 2026. The TRC is open every weekday from 10.00 to 15.00.

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.