Mediterranean Embroideries
2023-04-18 10:00 - 2023-12-03 17:00 (Europe/London) | The Fitzwilliam Museum, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, CB2 1RB
A showcase of a range of textiles from across the Mediterranean world explores the embroidery practices that connect them.

This display showcases a range of textiles from across the Mediterranean world and explores the embroidery practices that connect them. Mostly created by women, these lively and decorative textiles provided a means of self-expression for women and girls of all ages. Generation after generation of makers handed down their needle skills, creating pieces that reflected personal tastes, social standing and community affiliation.
In the main, the embroideries were made for use in the home, as cushions, towel ends, bed tents, or as clothing.
Common features included ships, vases, fantastical beings, humans, birds and even words, while other motifs denoted regional differences. Some patterns travelled, appearing on other objects, such as ceramics, from opposite ends of the Mediterranean.
The selection curated here for the Shiba Gallery begins to tell the intertwined stories stitched into these detailed and delicate embroideries.

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Knitting & Crochet Guild Collection Open Day
2023-05-13 10:00 - 16:00, 2023-06-06 10:00 - 16:00, 2023-09-12 10:00 - 16:00, 2023-11-11 10:00 - 16:00 | Knitting & Crochet Guild, Britannia Mill, Britannia Road, Slaithwaite, Huddersfield, HD7 5HE
Visit our Collection and see the delights it has to offer.

Come and see how we care for and store our Collection of knitted and crochet items, tools and documents that support the crafts. Talk with our expert volunteers about how we are preserving this history of our crafts, and learn more about the Guild.
Note on accessibility. Our Collection is housed on the first floor of on old building. Access is by stairs. Unfortunately, it is not possible to visit the Collection if you are unable to climb up and down stairs.
Free to attend, just drop in.

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House of Weaving Songs
2023-07-07 12:00 - 2023-07-09 18:00 | Trinity Centre, Trinity Road, Bristol, BS2 0NW
An outdoor interactive artistic installation celebrating Somali culture featuring 360 audio and tapestry.

dhaqan collective invites guests to step inside the House of Weaving Songs, an outdoor sanctuary inspired by the Aqal, a nomadic Somali home.
Once inside, become enveloped by a series of beautiful woven tapestries that through touch ignite a sonic patchwork of stories and sounds of Somali women’s traditional weaving songs.
Offering the space as a shelter to reflect on the significance of Somali culture and our collective climate anxieties, dhaqan collective will also invite visitors to add their own voice, connecting the city to ancestral cultural practices that are endangered.
The sound installation is part of the Playable Cities programme happening across Bristol this July.
dhaqan collective is a Somali Feminist art collective led by Ayan Cilmi and Fozia Ismail. Their practice seeks to find ways of building imaginative futures that support Somali people in the UK and in East Africa to resist the threats over our cultural heritage.
The house is open on Friday 7th – Saturday 8th July between 12 pm – 6 pm and on Sunday 9th July between 12 pm – 4 pm.

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Material Power: Palestinian Embroidery
2023-07-08 11:00 - 2023-10-29 17:00 | Kettle’s Yard, Castle Street, Cambridge, CB3 0AQ
‘Material Power: Palestinian Embroidery’ explores the historical life and contemporary significance of Palestinian embroidery.

This ancient and beautiful practice remains an important living tradition and the most prominent cultural material of Palestine today. Curated by Rachel Dedman, the exhibition looks at the ways in which embroidery, primarily undertaken by women, has evolved through a century of turbulent history for the Palestinian people.
This is the first major exhibition of Palestinian embroidery in the UK for over 30 years, with more than 40 dresses and embroidered objects on display lent from important private collections in Jordan and Palestine. Every dress tells a story: whether about the lives of women with their astonishing skills and creativity in the early decades of the last century, or the trauma of displacement as a result of the war of 1948. And reflecting the decades since: in which the vibrant colours and patterns of Palestinian embroidery, now often created for a global market by groups of women, have become symbolic of nationhood, memory, and resistance. Alongside historic dresses are artworks by five contemporary artists, films of embroiderers speaking about their work and rarely seen archive material.
Material Power: Palestinian Embroidery is organised by Kettle’s Yard in collaboration with the Whitworth, The University of Manchester, where it will travel from 24 November 2023 – 7 April 2024.

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Social Scaffolding Art Collective
2023-07-15 11:00 - 2023-07-30 16:00 | The Galleries, Broadmead, Bristol, BS1 3DQ, United Kingdom
An exhibition of immersive & interactive artworks by Lou Baker, Juliet Duckworth & Alyson Minkley

Come and visit Social Scaffolding at The Galleries, it’s free and not like a normal art gallery with “Do not touch” signs, in fact we encourage you to explore the artworks & invite you to get involved.
Become a Living Sculpture posing or performing in Lou Baker’s quirky knitted, wearable art or contribute to the growing immersive Social Knitwork installation. Join Lou to knit, knot, plait, crochet or even make a pompom.
Help Juliet Duckworth weave a giant nest with local recycled resources. Can we build as successfully as the rooks whose nests feature in Urban Rookery, bringing the outside inside to help us contemplate human relationships with nature?
Or join Alyson Minkley for a social stitching session contributing your own thoughts and stories about isolation and connection to the cocreated work Synapse – a series of human-scale cocoons that you can even climb into for a moment of calm contemplation.

Drop in 11am-4pm Thursdays-Sundays from 15-30 July.

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A Collector's Story: A Private Collection of Vivienne Westwood
2023-07-22 10:00 - 2024-02-04 17:00 | The Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, County Durham, DL12 8NP
A snapshot of the late Vivienne Westwood’s career through the eyes of collector, Peter Smithson. Items from the Museum’s collection that echo and contextualise historical references in Westwood’s work are displayed alongside.

This new exhibition in the Fashion & Textile Gallery at The Bowes Museum shows a snapshot from the late Vivienne Westwood’s career through the eyes of collector, Peter Smithson. Peter has collected Westwood for nearly thirty years, with a particular focus on the years from Mini-Crini (1986) to Storm in a Teacup (1996/97). The exhibition includes complete ensembles from significant collections across the 1980s and 1990s, as well as accessories and ephemera from Peter’s collection.
The earliest Westwood outfit on display is from Mini-Crini (1986) and features one of her signature mini-skirts inspired by the crinolines of the 1850s. An Armour jacket from Time Machine (AW 1988/89) reflects the shape of metal armour in its construction from heavy tweed. An amazing black velvet catsuit from Portrait (AW 1990/91) is printed with gold ink in a design inspired by seventeenth-century French cabinetmaker, André-Charles Boulle. Two ensembles from On Liberty (AW 1994/95) and Storm in a Teacup (AW 1996/97) explore and disrupt the history of tartan and tweed in fashion.
Westwood was very inspired by art and fashion, cultural and social history. Objects from The Bowes Museum’s stored collections are displayed alongside her creations to show historical sources for her ideas and to examine materials and techniques.
They include armour, an early seventeenth-century portrait miniature, a pair of miniature Boulle plinths, and a limited edition Westwood plate with a lace design, produced by Coalport in 2003. From the Fashion & Textile collection, tapestry seat covers and a rare pile fabric picture purchased by Joséphine and John Bowes, are on show, as well as a pair of eighteenth-century stays, bustles, shoes, lace from the Blackborne Lace Collection, and children’s clothes from local shop Milners in Middleham.
N.B. The exhibition is the result of a collaboration between The Bowes Museum and private collector Peter Smithson. It is not an institutional partnership with Vivienne Westwood Limited.

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REBEL: 30 Years of London Fashion
2023-09-16 10:00 - 2024-02-11 17:00 | The Design Museum, 224–238 Kensington High Street, London, W8 6AG
This landmark exhibition will be one of the most wide-ranging surveys of contemporary fashion culture ever staged in the UK.

Opening to coincide with London Fashion Week, this landmark exhibition will be one of the most wide-ranging surveys of contemporary fashion culture ever staged in the UK. It will offer an unprecedented look at how careers in fashion are forged, and the multitude of opportunities London’s fashion scene offers young creatives.
The exhibition is a landmark collaboration with the British Fashion Council (BFC) and will celebrate the 30th anniversary of the BFC’s NEWGEN programme, an initiative that supports the best emerging fashion design talent and aims to build global, high-end brands of the future.
Guest-curated by BFC Ambassador for Emerging Talent Sarah Mower MBE and co-curated by Design Museum Senior Curator Rebecca Lewin, this exhibition tells the story of hundreds of fearless young designers who have transformed the fashion landscape, and will bring together exuberant, rebellious and radical garments.
The show will feature nearly 100 innovative fashion looks from ground-breaking debut and early collections, many of which have entered pop-culture history — and launched global design careers.
Highlights include the swan dress controversially worn by Björk at the 2001 Oscars, Harry Styles’ Steven Stokey Daley outfit from his video for ‘Golden’, and Sam Smith’s inflatable latex suit by HARRI from this year’s BRIT Awards. Collections and work by JW Anderson, Wales Bonner, Erdem, Molly Goddard, Christopher Kane, Simone Rocha, Russell Sage, and many more will also be featured.
These items will be shown alongside films, drawings, memorabilia and never-before-seen archive material from some of the most well-known contemporary UK-based designers.
#RebelFashion

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Gabrielle Chanel. Fashion Manifesto
2023-09-16 10:00 - 2024-02-25 17:30 | V&A, Cromwell Rd, London, SW7 2RL, United Kingdom
The first UK exhibition dedicated to the work of French couturière, Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel, charting the establishment of the House of CHANEL and the evolution of her iconic design style which continues to influence the way women dress today.

Opening in September 2023, the V&A is to stage the first UK exhibition dedicated to the work of French couturière, Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel, charting the evolution of her iconic design style and the establishment of the House of CHANEL, from the opening of her first millinery boutique in Paris in 1910 to the showing of her final collection in 1971.
Featuring over 180 looks, seen together for the first time, as well as jewellery, accessories, cosmetics and perfumes, the exhibition will explore Chanel’s pioneering approach to fashion design, which paved the way for a new feminine elegance and continues to influence the way women dress today.
Based upon the Gabrielle Chanel. Fashion Manifesto exhibition organised by the Palais Galliera, Paris, the exhibition will be re-imagined for the V&A and feature rarely seen pieces from the V&A’s collection, alongside looks from Palais Galliera and the Patrimoine de CHANEL, the heritage collections of the fashion house in Paris. Key pieces on display will include outfits created for British model Anne Gunning (later Lady Nutting) and Hollywood stars Lauren Bacall and Marlene Dietrich.

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Double Weave: Bourne and Allen’s Modernist Textiles
2023-09-16 10:30 - 2024-04-14 17:00 | Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, Lodge Hill Lane, Ditchling, East Sussex, BN6 8SP
Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft mark ten years since our major redevelopment with an exhibition about the museum’s co-founder Hilary Bourne (1909 – 2004) and Barbara Allen (1903 – 1972), her partner in life and work.

The pair ran an internationally successful textile studio, designing and making a variety of fabrics – tweed for Fortnum & Mason, furnishing fabric for Heal’s and scarves for Liberty. The turning point in their career came in 1951, when they won the competition to design and make textiles for the newly built Festival Hall. They went on to win commissions to make the costumes for the multi-Oscar winning 1959 film Ben-Hur and the interiors of the UK’s first jet planes.
In short, they were two of the most significant textile designers of the modernist period, yet they remain largely unknown – until now.
Double Weave gives space to their story. It speaks to the invisibility of women as leading modernist designers and how women’s intimacy informs creative pursuits.

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The Missing Threads
2023-09-21 10:00 - 2024-01-07 18:00 | Somerset House, Strand, London, WC2R 1LA, United Kingdom
UNTOLD STORIES OF BLACK BRITISH FASHION

This autumn, Somerset House explores the stories of Black British fashion in a major new exhibition, The Missing Thread, curated by the Black Orientated Legacy Development Agency (BOLD). Spanning from the 1970s to the present day, The Missing Thread charts the shifting landscape of Black British culture and the unique contribution it has made to Britain’s rich design history.
The exhibition examines how the cultural, counter-cultural, political and socio-economic backdrop of the 20th and 21st centuries have shaped the identity of Black style and in turn mainstream fashion culture. Extending far beyond the realm of the catwalk, the exhibition spotlights and contextualises the profound impact of Black creativity through music, photography, art and design.
Talks and events linked to the exhibition are listed here.

Event Details

An Artist in Silk
2023-11-17 11:30 - 14:00 | Braintree District Museum, Manor Street, Braintree, CM7 3HW, United Kingdom
TEXTILE SOCIETY EVENT

Behind the Scenes of Nineteenth Century Silk Weaving with the Textile Society at Braintree Museum and the Warner Textile Archive.

Join us at Braintree Museum and the Warner Textile Archive to explore the history of silk design in the nineteenth century!
This is a special opportunity to hear more about the collaboration between the Textile Society and the Warner Textile Archive, and to see the amazing work being done to improve accessibility to textile heritage in the UK.
The Warner & Sons Gallery highlights the breadth of design and manufacture of a textile company supplying royalty, prime ministers and cathedrals, as well as public transport and hospitals. Our expert guide will explain several key pieces in the display and give you an overview of Warner & Sons through the ages. You will have entry to Braintree Museum as part of your booking, with complimentary tea/coffee, plus time to explore the site and the museum shop. Your visit will then move to the Warner Textile Archive to see behind the scenes in the store of one of the largest textile collections in the UK, and to hear about the ongoing project to conserve, catalogue, digitise and research the incredible artworks produced c.1870-1910 by artists for silks woven by Warner & Sons, and other businesses purchased in that era.
Venue
Braintree Museum, Manor Street, Braintree, CM7 3HW
Timings
11.30 – Meet at Braintree Museum shop
11.40 – Guided tour of key artefacts in the galleries
12.00 – Opportunity to view the museum displays and enjoy complimentary tea/coffee
12.50 – Transfer to the Warner Archive (approximately 5 minutes walk)
13.00 – Behind the scenes visit in the Warner Archive with specialist archivist
14.00 – End
NB. If driving, use the local council car parks. If you have specialist requirements in terms of access, disability parking etc. please contact the event organiser. It takes approximately 5 mins to walk from the Braintree Museum to the Warner Textile Archive.
Braintree Museum has a cafe where tables can be reserved for lunch after the event. Alternatively visitors may wish to head into Braintree town centre.
Tickets
Textile Society Members: £5
Non-Members: £10
Places are limited!
Please supply an email address when booking so that we can alert you in the event of cancellation.

Click here to purchase your ticket via Eventbrite

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Material Power Palestinian Embroidery
2023-11-24 10:00 - 2024-04-07 17:00 | Whitworth Art Gallery, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M15 6ER, United Kingdom
Embroidery is the most important cultural material of Palestine. This ancient practice is characterised by remarkable beauty and complexity.

Historically, each area of Palestine was known for different motifs, techniques and textiles. Embroidery constituted a visual language among rural women, and their clothing reflected their origins and identity.
Material Power charts the evolution of embroidery in Palestine over the past century: from rich village tradition, transformed by modernity, to its politicisation in the 1970s and commodification in the present. Over the last 75 years, embroidery has become a powerful symbol of resistance, and the embodiment of resilience on personal and national scales.
On display in the UK for the first time in over 30 years, historical dresses sit alongside the voices of women who continue to embroider today, and the work of contemporary artists critically reinterpreting the practice. Material Power seeks to unfold an intimate, human history of Palestine through clothing.
Material Power: Palestinian Embroidery was organised by The Whitworth, The University of Manchester in collaboration with Kettle’s Yard where it travelled from 8 July – 29 October 2023.

Event Details

Lubaina Himid: Lost Threads
2024-01-19 10:00 - 2024-04-21 17:00 | The Holburne Museum, Great Pulteney Street, Bath, BA2 4DB, United Kingdom
Lubaina Himid’s ‘Lost Threads’ will see 400 metres of vibrant Dutch wax fabric transform the spaces of the Holburne Museum

Weaving and flowing across the front façade and around the permanent collections, Lubaina Himid’s Lost Threads will see 400 metres of vibrant Dutch wax fabric transform the spaces of the Holburne Museum.
Reflecting the movement of the oceans and rivers that have been used to transport cotton, yarn and enslaved people throughout history, Lost Threads traces the paradoxes of textile production and circulation by engaging with its material implications.

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Andy Warhol: The Textiles
2024-01-26 10:00 - 2024-05-18 17:00 | Dovecot Studios, 10 Infirmary Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1LT, United Kingdom
The first exhibition in Scotland exclusively dedicated to the commercial textile designs of pop artist and icon Andy Warhol.

Leading figure of the Pop Art movement, Andy Warhol’s swiftly successful career began in commercial and advertising art during the 1950s and early 1960s. At this time, Warhol’s output was almost entirely devoted to realising the demands and deadlines of professional clients, such as Glamour magazine where he undertook his first commission.
Andy Warhol: The Textiles will take you on a journey through the unknown and unrecorded world of designs by the influential artist before his Silver Factory days. Showcasing over 35 of Warhol’s textile patterns from the period, depicting an array of colourful objects; ice cream sundaes, delicious toffee apples, colourful buttons, cut lemons, pretzels, and jumping clowns, this exhibition demonstrates how textile and fashion design was a crucial stage in Warhol becoming one of the most iconic artists of the twentieth century.

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2024 Banner Exhibition
2024-02-01 10:00 - 2024-12-30 17:00 | People’s History Museum, Left Bank, Spinningfields, Manchester, M3 3ER, United Kingdom
Come face to face with a colourful selection of historic and contemporary banners, the handiwork of those who fought for the rights we have today.

Including several banners on display for the first time, the 2024 Banner Exhibition features those of trade unions of the 1900s, through to notable strikes of miners, teachers, and health workers, to more recent campaigns on migration and disability rights.
With their memorable messages and motifs, these banners are striking representations of groundbreaking moments of protestand the people united by them.
The 2024 Banner Exhibition is the most accessible banner exhibition to take place at People’s History Museum.   A range of accessible formats have been created to enable visitors to engage with the exhibition in different ways.

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Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art
2024-02-13 10:00 - 2024-05-26 18:00 | Barbican Centre, Silk St, London, EC2Y 8DS
Using textiles, fibre and thread, 50 international artists challenge power structures and reimagine the world in this major group exhibition.

Textiles cover and protect us, engage our senses, trigger our memories, represent our beliefs, hold our stories. We are wrapped in cloth when we’re born and enshrouded in it when we die.
As an artistic medium, textiles can speak to the joys and pains of being human, as well as the larger structures and systems that shape our world.
In this major group exhibition, 50 international, intergenerational artists use textiles to communicate vital ideas about power, resistance and survival. From intimate hand-crafted pieces to monumental sculptural installations, these works offer narratives of violence, imperialism and exclusion alongside stories of resilience, love and hope.
The events programme linked to this exhibition can be viewed here.
Sat-Wed 10am – 6pm (last entry 4.30pm)
Thu-Fri 10am – 8pm (last entry 6.30pm)
Bank Holidays 12pm – 6pm (last entry 4.30pm)

Event Details

A Visible THREAD
2024-02-17 09:30 - 2024-05-04 16:00 | Llantarnam Grange Arts Centre, St. Davids Road, Cwmbran, Torfaen, NP44 1PD
‘A Visible THREAD’ explores the visibility and invisibility of thread.

A Visible THREAD is a group exhibition from the contemporary textile collective seam that explores the visibility and invisibility of thread. Thread, as cloth, is woven through our lives. It surrounds us like a second skin. Precisely because of these close connections, it becomes almost invisible to us.
Rooted in craft techniques, work made with thread has historically been seen as ‘women’s work’, private, functional, decorative, and safe. Cloth itself is still considered a gendered material and there’s a gender divide between ‘high’ art and feminised craft. Until recently, thread has been almost invisible as a medium in contemporary art.
A Visible THREAD aims to encourage viewers to rethink their relationship to thread, be aware of its materiality, its sustainability, its possibilities, and limitations. Through a diverse range of textile disciplines and perspectives, this exhibition brings new work from 13 seam artists together to stimulate thought, connection, and conversation.
seam is a contemporary textile collective based in South West England. It is made up of emerging and established embroiderers, printers, knitters, weavers, dyers, fashion designers, eco-designers, makers, artists. The collective is about coming together and supporting each other through sharing knowledge, local opportunities, local production, forging local bonds and sharing their work and love of textiles with others.

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SARGENT AND FASHION
2024-02-22 10:00 - 2024-07-07 18:00 | Tate Britain, Millbank, London, SW1P 4RG
Fashion, identity, painting: explore the unique work of John Singer Sargent

Celebrated for his striking portrait paintings, this exhibition sheds new light on John Singer Sargent’s acclaimed works. It explores how he worked like a stylist to craft the image of the sitters he painted, who he often had close relationships with.
Sargent used fashion as a powerful tool to express identity and personality. He regularly chose the outfits of his collaborators or manipulated their clothing. This innovative use of costume was central to his artwork – for example, tugging a heavy coat tighter around a man to emphasise his figure or letting a dress strap sensuously slip from a woman’s shoulder. It was these daring sartorial choices that allowed him to express his vision as an artist.
Almost 60 of Sargent’s paintings will be on display, including major portraits that rarely travel. Several period garments will also be showcased alongside the portraits they were worn in. The show examines how this remarkable painter used fashion to create portraits of the time, which still captivate today.

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Online Symposium Material Power: Palestinian Embroidery
2024-03-07 10:00 - 16:00 | Online Event
Connecting curators, researchers, and artists to share and extend knowledge around Palestinian embroidery, dress, and material culture.

The Whitworth, Manchester, UK, presents a free online symposium, Material Power: Palestinian Embroidery, organised in partnership with the V&A, London, UK.
Join us online for a free, one-day programme of presentations, panel discussions, and roundtable conversation inspired by the Material Power: Palestinian Embroidery exhibition at the Whitworth. From care for collections to contemporary art practices, the symposium seeks to shed light on the history of Palestinian embroidery, as well as its evolution and transformation over time.

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Stitching the Intifada: Embroidery and Resistance in Palestine
2024-03-14 18:30 - 20:00 | Online Event
The talk accompanies ‘Material Power: Palestinian Embroidery’, an exhibition curated by Rachel Dedman, currently on display in Manchester.

​Embroidery is the most important cultural material of Palestine. This ancient practice, called tatreez in Arabic, is characterised by remarkable beauty and complexity. Beginning with an introduction to embroidery’s traditional making, this paper traces Palestinian embroidery’s adoption as a touchstone of national heritage following the Nakba of 1948, and argues for its subsequent politicisation, through PLO policy and the representation of embroidery by artists.
During the First Intifada uprising, 1987-1993, ‘Intifada Dresses’ were made and worn by women living in refugee camps and villages of the West Bank, and by those in the diaspora. At a time when Palestinian symbols were banned in public, traditional motifs mingled with doves, rifles, and signs of allegiance to political parties, embroidered in national colours. While protest is associated with immediacy, embroidery is by its nature hand-made, private and slow. Intifada dresses, years in the making, render material the conceptual and psychological strength of the Intifada, through the labour of women.

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STYLE & SOCIETY: Dressing the Georgians
2024-03-22 09:00 - 2024-09-22 16:30 | Palace of Holyroodhouse, Canongate, The Royal Mile, Edinburgh, EH8 8DX, United Kingdom
This exciting exhibition explores what the Georgians wore, from the practical dress of laundry maids to the glittering gowns worn at court.

Discover what fashion can tell us about life in 18th-century Britain, a revolutionary period of trade, travel and technology which fuelled fashion trends across all levels of society. Delve into the Georgians’ style story and get up close to magnificent paintings, prints and drawings by artists including Gainsborough, Zoffany and Hogarth, as well as luxurious textiles, sparkling jewellery, and a range of accessories from snuff boxes to swords.
The exhibition reveals how the Georgians ushered in many of the cultural trends we know today, including the first stylists and influencers, the birth of a specialised fashion press and the development of shopping as a leisure activity.
The exhibition is taking place at The King’s Gallery, Palace of Holyroodhouse formerly known as The Queen’s Gallery.

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Art Without Heroes: Mingei
2024-03-23 10:00 - 2024-09-22 17:00 | William Morris Gallery, Lloyd Park, Forest Road, London, E17 4PP, United Kingdom
The largest ever exhibition in the UK dedicated to Japanese folk-craft.

Mingei is the influential folk-craft movement that developed in Japan in the 1920s and 1930s in response to rapid industrialisation. Japanese philosopher Yanagi Sōetsu coined the term to mean ‘the art of the people’, ascribing cultural value and aesthetic purity to traditional craft ob sects, unnamed makers and a simpler way of life.
With more than 80 works, including ceramics, woodwork, paper, toys, textiles, photography and film, the exhibition will incorporate unseen pieces from significant private collections in the UK and Japan, along with museum loans and historic footage from the Mingei Film Archive.

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Out Shopping: The Dresses of Marion and Maud Sambourne (1880-1910)
2024-03-23 10:00 - 2024-10-20 17:30 | Leighton House, 12 Holland Park Road, London, W14 8LZ, United Kingdom
Unveiling the Sambourne House collection of dresses belonging to Marion and Maud Sambourne, Out Shopping showcases nationally significant outfits, including rare surviving examples by leading – often female – dressmakers of the era.
Focused on the late Victorian period and into the 20th century at a moment in history that shaped the way fashion and shopping is consumed today, accompanying photography, letters and receipts paint an intimate picture of how fashion informed the distinct personalities of this middle-class mother and her affluent daughter.
Highlights include the blue skirt and jacket by eminent court and society dressmaker Sarah Fullerton Monteith Young, which Marion wore to her daughter’s wedding (1898); and Maud’s brown velvet embellished chiffon day dress by Mascotte (1906).
In the Tavolozza Drawings Gallery, ‘Out in Paris’ presents a selection of street photography by artist Linley Sambourne, taken during a weekend out in Paris with his wife Marion in 1906.
For the first time in the history of the museums, the exhibition spans across both Leighton House and Sambourne House, inviting visitors to embark on a immersive journey.

Event Details

Stitching the Intifada: Embroidery and Resistance in Palestine
2024-03-25 19:00 - 20:30 | Online Event
An event with Rachel Dedman, curator of ‘Material Power: Palestinian Embroidery’. All ticket sales to Medical Aid for Palestinians.

Embroidery is the most important cultural material of Palestine. This ancient practice, called tatreezin Arabic, is characterised by remarkable beauty and complexity. Beginning with an introduction to embroidery’s traditional making, this paper traces Palestinian embroidery’s adoption as a touchstone of national heritage following the Nakba of 1948, and argues for its subsequent politicisation, through PLO policy and the representation of embroidery by artists.
During the First Intifada uprising, 1987-1993, ‘Intifada Dresses’ were made and worn by women living in refugee camps and villages of the West Bank, and by those in the diaspora. At a time when Palestinian symbols were banned in public, traditional motifs mingled with doves, rifles, and signs of allegiance to political parties, embroidered in national colours. While protest is associated with immediacy, embroidery is by its nature hand-made, private and slow. Intifada dresses, years in the making, render material the conceptual and psychological strength of the Intifada, through the labour of women.
The lecture accompanies Material Power: Palestinian Embroidery, an exhibition curated by Rachel Dedman, currently on display at The Whitworth, Manchester, following a run at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, in 2023.

Event Details

Shirley Craven
2024-04-06 10:00 - 2025-05-11 17:00 | Whitworth Art Gallery, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M15 6ER, United Kingdom
An exhibition of vivid, colour-filled textiles by post-war designer Shirley Craven.

Born in Hull in 1934 and evacuated during the Second World War, Craven cites the rural Yorkshire landscape and her post-war education at Hull College of Art and the Royal College of Art (1955-8) as a launchpad to a hugely successful career at the printing firm Hull Traders. Aged 29, Craven became Chief Designer and Director of this small and visionary firm whose artist-designers also included Althea McNish and Eduardo Paolozzi. The Whitworth is home to over 80 of Craven’s bold abstract textiles, displayed together for the first time in over 60 years alongside newly acquired unique works from her days as a Student at the RCA.

Event Details

Suspended States
2024-04-12 10:00 - 2024-09-01 18:00 | Serpentine Galleries, Serpentine South, Kensington Gardens, London, W2 3XA, United Kingdom
‘Suspended States’ addresses the suspension of boundaries, whether psychological, physical, or geographical

British Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare’s new works examine systems of power in Western iconography and the legacies of European imperialism. Suspended States will include installations, sculptures, pictorial quilts and woodcuts. His quilts focus on the ecological impact of colonialisation.

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Careworn
2024-04-24 13:00 - 2024-05-14 17:00 | Constance Howard Gallery, Deptford Town Hall basement, New Cross, London, SE14 6NW, United Kingdom
Careworn is a collection of prints, drawings, and handmade garments by Sophie-Nicole Dodds will be exhibited alongside historical objects from the Goldsmiths Textile Collection. Presented in an archive-based format, the exhibition aims to facilitate a dialogue between objects and processes within the domestic space, emphasising both the act of wearing and care within the making process.
Dodds trained in Bespoke Tailoring at the London College of Fashion before completing the MA Design: Expanded Practice (Fashions and Embodiment) course at Goldsmiths in 2020.
Having worked extensively with the Goldsmiths Textile Collection during her MA, Dodds further developed her interest in and work with collections and archives through an ‘Illuminating Objects’ internship at The Courtauld Gallery, run in conjunction with the Science Museum.
In 2022 Dodds completed the postgraduate Year of Drawing scholarship at the Royal Drawing School and has since been returning to Goldsmiths to run drawing workshops with MA Design students and to continue her research with the Goldsmiths Textile Collection.
Exhibition Dates:
24 April – 14 May 2024
Mon-Fri, 1-5pm

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