Global Textile Encounters: 20 (Ancient Textiles Series)

Global Textile Encounters is a fascinating journey into three significant textiles and clothing cultures: China, India and Europe. The common thread is how fashions and traditions have traveled through space and time. In this richly illustrated anthology, with its 242 images, written both by textile researchers and practitioners as well as scholars from other fields across the globe, we hear of various types of encounters that bring to life a world of interactions and consequences as colorful as the textiles themselves. Among the 33 contributions we learn of an historian of ancient Roman textiles who has an intellectual epiphany in the streets of modern Iran; of 17th-century European Jesuits spreading the Gospel in Asia who attire themselves in the clothing suitable to their host countries; a visiting Siamese delegation that unwittingly creates fashion in 18th-century France;; how Chinese textile technology changed as a result of encountering textile patterns along the silk road; how political messages are conveyed in the sari; how Maharajahs inspired global pop culture; and the value we ascribe to old clothing. Recurrent themes include how religious praxis is informed by textile encounters; how traveling textiles enable patterns and symbols to be copied onto stone and metals; and textile motifs that acquire other symbolic meanings in their travels and encounters with different societies.
This sensibly priced, highly readable paperback, edited by three eminent textile scholars from Europe, China and India, is aimed at the interested general public and students. A Chinese version will be published by Donghua University Press in China.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments & Dedication
1. Textiles and Elite Tastes between the Mediterranean, Iran and Asia at the end of Antiquity: Matthew P. Canepa
2. Palla, Pallu, Chador: Draped clothing in ancient and modern cultures: Mary Harlow
3. From Draupadi to Dido: The duties of dress in paintings inspired by the Mahabarata and the Aeneid: Linda Matheson
4. The Kaftan: An unusual textile encounter in the Scandinavian Late Iron Age: Ulla Mannering
5. Ancient Running Animals: Tablet-woven borders from China and Norway: Lise Ræder Knudsen
6. The Development of Pattern Weaving Technology through Textile Exchange along the Silk Road: Zhao Feng
7. The Earliest Cotton Ikat textiles from Nahal ‘Omer Israel 650-810 CE: Orit Shamir and Alisa Baginski
8. Northerners – Global Travellers in the Viking Age: Eva Andersson Strand
9. Unravelling Textile Mysteries with DNA analysis: Luise Ørsted Brandt
10. The Traceable Origin of Textiles: Karin Margarita Frei
11. The World of Textiles in Three Spheres: European Woollens, Indian Cottons and Chinese Silks, 1300-1700: Giorgio Riello
12. Chinese Silks in Mamluk Egypt: Helen Persson
13. Woven Mythology: The Textile Encounter of makara, senmurw and phoenix: Mariachiara Gasparini
14. Textile in Art: The influence of textile patterns on ornaments in the architecture of medieval Zirikhgeran: Zvezdana Dode
15. Coromandel Textiles: The Changing Face of Consumer Demand and Weavers’ Responses 16th to 18th Century CE: Vijaya Ramaswamy
16. The Jesuit Dilemma in Asia: Being a naked ascetic or a court literate?: Selusi Ambrogio
17. “The Colourful Qualities of Desire”: Fashion, colours and industrial espionage: Vibe Maria Martens
18. Fashion Encounters: The “Siamoise” or the Impact of the Great Embassy on textile design in Paris in 1687: Corinne Thépaut-Cabasset
19.The Chinoiserie of the17th to 18th-century Soho Tapestry Makers: Mette Bruun
20. Exoticism in Fashion: From British North America to the United States: Madelyn Shaw
21. Textile symbolism and social mobility during the Colonial Period in Sydney Cove: Judith Cameron
22. The Impact of British Rule on the Dressing Sensibilities of Indian Aristocrats: A case study of the Maharaja of Baroda’s dress: Toolika Gupta
23. Re-imagining the Dragon Robe: China Chic in Early Twentieth-Century European Fashion: Sarah Cheang
24. Sari and the Narrative of Nation in Twentieth-Century India: Aarti Kawlra
25. From Cool to Un-cool to Re-cool: Nehru and Mao tunics in the sixties and post-sixties West: Michael Langkjær
26. Too Old: Clothes and value in Norwegian and Indian wardrobes: Ingun Grimstad Klepp, Lill Vramo and Kirsi Laitala
27. A ‘stinging’ textile: Cultivation of Nettle fibre in Denmark and Asia: Ellen Bangsbo
28. Fist-braided Slings from Peru and Tibet: Lena Bjerregaard
29. Parsi Embroidery: An Intercultural Amalgam: Shernaz Cama
30. The Navjote Ceremony and the Sudreh Kushti: Lotika Varadarajan
31. Glocalization, Identity and T-shirt Communication: Karl-Heinz Pogner
32. India to Africa: Indian Madras and Kalabari Creativity: Joanne B. Eicher
33. Textile: The non-verbal language: Jasleen Dhamija

Marie-Louise Nosch is Director of the Danish National Research Foundation’s Centre for Textile Research, University of Copenhagen and Research Professor at the SAXO Institute, University of Copenhagen. She is the editor of many titles in the Ancient Textiles series.