Wandering around Paris

As I mentioned earlier, I spent a few weeks in France recently. I didn't especially go looking for textile-related things, but they seemed to find me, as they usually do.

One place we always visit in Paris is Hotel des Invalides. It's not so much that we have a passion for Napoleon's tomb, although that is pretty impressive. But the accompanying museum calls us back every time. It's the only museum I've ever visited which has medieval armour shoved casually into piles - here a stack of pikes, there some mail, over here a collection of helmets glaring fiercely at passers-by. And cannons of every description guard the central cloister. They do have more formal exhibition spaces too, of course, but the casualness of quantity grabs me every time. This time, we visited their excellent WWI and WWII exhibitions, which we'd previously missed. They have a chronological pathway you can follow, beginning with late nineteenth century exhibits, or you can amble about in your own order.

I was fascinated by the military uniforms. Many of them were surprisingly stylish for something that was essentially utilitarian. It's always hard to take good photos and most of my shots were for my own interest, but here's a page's uniform from the late 19th century.

All that work, so you had someone to fetch your drinks and take off your boots! The fact that armies had pages is itself an interesting comment on how warfare was waged in those far-off days.

And here is the embroidered traycloth for Marechal Petain's guards. Not, I gather, for the Marshall Himself but for the chaps detailed to look after him. The mind boggles.

We quilters know a lot about commemorative fabrics, but did you know there was fabric made commemorating the end of WWII? Here is a Victory dress, made in France just after peace was declared in Europe. I'm not sure if it was ever worn, and I can't somehow see it as the height of fashion, even in those times, but someone went to the trouble of making it.

Another place we go back to again and again is the Louvre. This museum is just the most brilliant place, and one of my favourite places in all the world. It's vitally important that you have A Plan when you go there, partly because it's huge, and partly because you can get sidetracked so easily from the things you wanted to see. Our plan this time was to have a third try at the Egyptian, Greek and Etruscan antiquities, which have been unavailable each time we've visited the Louvre. Just unlucky, I guess. This time we were in luck, and they were on display in the fullness of their glory. All of them. They have a lot. Many happy hours could be spent looking at them, more happy hours than we actually had, to do them justice. But we tried.

See this fabric? Ordinary looking, you think? A simple tabby weave linen, with a twisted fringe. It's from the 20th Dynasty in Egypt, so we're talking about 1100BCE. About three thousand years old. Pretty amazing for a medium that is generally considered ephemeral. I guess most of us who work in textiles are accustomed to the idea that what we make won't last forever and, let's face it, it's probably won't survive for three thousand years. This isn't the only example of Very Old Textiles in the Louvre - they have quite a lot of ancient Egyptian textiles.

Like this dress. It's very simple, but those lines across it are actually pleats, which I guess are what allows the wearer to put it on and to move once they have it on! This dress was discovered at Assyut, in middle Egypt, and dates to the Middle Kingdom.  That's about 2055-1650BCE, so this garment is anything from three and a half to four thousand years old. The middle Egyptian excavation I went on (twenty years ago now!) found a similar dress, which was dated to the end of the Old Kingdom-early First Intermediate Period - so that's about twenty years older than the oldest date for this dress. Styles didn't change much, so Egyptian women were clearly not fashion victims, out in the boondocks of civilisation, anyway.

And then there's the jewellery. No, not the flashy gold stuff - this is more your everyday dress wear. These ones date to the Middle Kingdom - three and half to four thousand years old.

These ones are New Kingdom - three to three and a half thousand years old:

And this beautiful beaded curtain is positively new - it's from the Late Period, so only about two and a half thousand years old.

And all that was just the beginning of the trip. I may share more later...



Textile Travels Part 2: Mulhouse textiles

While I was in France, I went to the Museum of Fabric at Mulhouse. I have wanted to go there for a long time, since my friend Gerard sent me posters of their exhibitions, which have decorated my workroom. It's quite a small museum, but very detailed. Mulhouse, in Alsace, became a textile printing area when Louis XVI banned the importation of the fashionable Indian chintzes into France, after a cholera outbreak in Marseilles. At this time, Mulhouse was ain independent principality, and the town fathers saw an opportunity. Many Europeans had travelled to India to try to discover the secrets of Indian printing and part of the exhibition at Mulhouse mentions these people and their contibution to European fabric printing. Once the secrets were discovered, chintz printing became the major industry in this area. The exhibition (all in French) describes the technical processes, including the original design books of some fabric designers and three full-sized looms from different periods, and provides lots of examples of fabrics printed in Mulhouse. There are also some examples of garments made from chintz, and several "boutis", French wholecloth quilts, made from Mulhouse chintz fabrics.

When I was there, there was also a special exhibition called Black and White, of fabrics designed and printed in Mulhouse. Fabrics are still printed there today, but mostly as special runs for couture designers, and for IKEA. There were examples of couture outfits made from Mulhouse fabrics, plus IKEA fabrics and other design works. I'll add photos and more information once I'm home again.

Textile travels Part 1: Tapestries and Sewing Machines

The blog has been quieter that usual because I'm not at home, creating things, but off travelling. I've managed to include quite a number of textile-related things in our travels, which my husband seems to find quite surprising, though I can't think why, since I arranged our itinerary!

First was a flying visit to the Louvre in Paris, as soon as we got off the plane. This visit, I went to see the tapestry collection, and very impressive it is. These were just the first of many tapestries I've seen in France, but I love them and can't get enough! I don't have clear photos of them, as they are kept in low light conditions, but they are wonderful pieces of work.

The Louvre is an amazing museum and I really enjoy going back, because I see new things every time. It's an incredible resource for the textile artist - since it contains so many different examples of material culture, from just about every corner of the earth. I find myself photographing and sketching things I never knew I was interested in, because the shape or line or pattern captures my attenti0n. See this ancient potsherd. Doesn't it have a fantastic design?

And this mosaic.... made up of incredible details like this...

The next stage of my textile travels took me to the Peugeot Museum, in Haute Saone. Yes, strange that you should ask, the man I love *is* interested in cars, but I found to my surprise that the Peugeot company began life as a tool-making concern, and their tools included sewing machines, which they continued to make until the 1930's. Of course their museum wasn't very interested in providing the large amount of detail I wanted about their machines, but it was fascinating to see these old European machines, dating from only shortly after the more familiar US machines. Here is an 1867 hand crank machine:
And a pedal machine with an alternating foot action:
This one is one of their last machines, in 1936-37.

I love the way that utilitarian items were made to look so beautiful.

Next, textiles in Mulhouse....