July 2011
26 posts
Dotty
Sexy, feminine, witty polka dots: Ever since the industrial revolution and the advent of machine textile printing made these symmetric repeats widely available, they’ve signaled modern dressing. It’s no wonder the runways were silly for spots this season.
Page 139 Elle Magazine or elle.com
June 2011
44 posts
Dyeing Blues
Analogous to birth and regeneration, Kodi textile dyeing is also vulnerable to the cycle of death and decay. It is recorded that practitioners associate the unpleasant smell of the dyebath with the putrefaction of rotting flesh, and consider the bath polluting to gestation. Pregnant women should not look at the dye pots, lest the sight of the dark and churning liquid dissolve the contents of...
Funeral Cloth
The changing funeral ceremonies of the seventeenth-century English aristocracy might be seen as heralding a related transformation. As they became increasingly expressive of private loss, these funerals no longer allowed kin groups, through spectacular cloth presentations, to channel death into regeneration and political gain. In earlier times, the mourners had received black drapes from the kin...
