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Woman's ikat coat from Uzbekistan, early 20th century (TRC 2017.0932).The only travel I can enjoy lately is via books, thanks to the lockdown. I’ve been enjoying Christopher Aslan Alexander’s A Carpet Ride to Khiva: Seven Years on the Silk Road (2010). In it, Alexander writes about falling in love with the city and crafts of Khiva, once a trading stop on the ancient Silk Road, in modern-day Uzbekistan. There are many wonderful details as he describes setting up a carpet weaving workshop, then another workshop for suzani embroiderers.

Wanting to learn more about Uzbek textiles, I started exploring the TRC’s on-line collection. The TRC collection includes some stunning silk Uzbek ikat garments, such as TRC 2007.1125 and TRC 2017.0932. Even better is a whole on-line exhibition called “Dressing the 'Stans': Textiles, dress and jewellery from Central Asia”, with more beautiful textiles.

As winter is here and the weather grey and cold, I crave colour. It cheers me up to look at the molas in the TRC collection (compare TRC 2014.0458 or TRC 2013.0360), with their multi-coloured stripes against a bright red background.

Mola for a blouse, San Blas, Panama (TRC 2014.0458).

Tapa is a non-woven cloth made from the inner bark of trees, especially the paper mulberry tree (Broussonetia papyrifera), or more occasionally from the wild fig or breadfruit tree. It’s most commonly found in Pacific Ocean island nations such as Tonga and Tahiti, but also in parts of South America and Africa. Tapa can be strong and long lasting, but it does have some disadvantages: producing tapa is very labour intensive, and it mildews and becomes weak when wet.

Bark cloth sample from Samoa, 1990's (TRC 2015.0070).

Bonnet for a woman of the Salvation Army, the Netherlands, 20th century (TRC 2020.3332a).We have just added two Dutch army uniforms to the TRC Collection. One of them (TRC 2020.5144a-c) was for a captain (ritmeester) in the Dutch cavalry, which was worn by Boudewijn Wilmer (1943-2019) and given to the TRC Leiden by his family. The other uniform (TRC 2020.5149a-f), for a corporal in the reserves, was worn by Kees van der Zwan, who in 1995 accompanied veteran Allied airmen when they toured Holland.

As a result of these and similar donations in the past, such as the police uniform (TRC 2007.1145a-h) worn by Paul van Musscher, a former highly placed police officer here in Leiden, or the set of army officer's uniforms (TRC 2019.0091-3), some of which worn by my husband when he served in Afghanistan, we have been asked if we are going to deliberately collect military and police uniforms?

Many museums and similar institutions, as well as private collectors, are concerned with The Beautiful, with rare, aesthetically pleasing items that stimulate the delicate feelings of the connoisseur. I have to confess to something that may shock you a little, but the TRC in Leiden does not work with the criteria of ‘The Beautiful’. Instead, we are collecting and studying items that are interesting, namely textiles and garments that reflect technical developments and/or illustrate stories that provide information about past, present and future aspects of social, economic, religious, personal and group identity. And all the many variations that come with this vast concept.

So what has all this to do with a very recent acquisition of the TRC Leiden? Well, it's a Christmas jumper, which is a story in itself. You can hardly describe it as beautiful and aesthetically pleasing. To the contrary, it is, for many of us, simply ugly. But it is meant to be!

A 'wrong', and 'orrible Christmas jumper, the latest addition to the TRC collection (TRC 2020.5178).

A quilt made c. 1850 in the USA, possibly by a slave (TRC 2019.2402).Earlier this year the TRC published a blog on an American quilt (TRC 2019.2402), dated to c. 1850s, which was probably produced by an enslaved person (see the TRC blog 'A slave quilt in the TRC collection?". The TRC collection also contains a sample of Dammur cloth from Sudan (TRC 2016.0034; see also the TRC blog 'Dammur cloth from Sudan' and 'Dammur cloth from Sudan, continued'). This was a type of locally made, relatively rough, cotton material used by Arab merchants for dressing slaves, as well as being a currency to buy them. These finds took me on a search to find out more about the role of textiles in the slave trade.

Textiles were one of the main currencies during the transatlantic slave trade, and were part of an international trade system that also saw Virginian tobacco, Danish guns, Spanish wines and cowrie shells from the Maldives traded for the lives of African men, women and children.

More and more people are wearing interesting, plain, colourful, funny, gruesome, as well as symbolic face masks as the corona virus situation drags on and on. There are fashion designers producing matching garments and masks, Gothic black forms  with lace and feathers, to local groups supporting various charities by making and selling suitable masks. See the recent TRC blog on the variety of face masks.

Face mask designed by the firm of Hand&Lock in London, 2020 (TRC 2020.5176a).

It has been a while since we have published some embroidery charts via the TRC Blog, so I have been looking for some suitable items.

As we are working on the volume about Sub-Saharan African embroidery for the Bloomsbury World Encyclopedia of Embroidery series, it seemed appropriate to include some African embroidery patterns. These particular examples are based on the darned embroidered bands from a series of men's caps now in the British Museum, London. The caps come from Senegal and were acquired by the Museum in 1934.