Enfilade

La fête de la Fédération textile, 1790
(Musee de la Toile de Jouy)

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Now on view at the Fashion and Textile Museum:

The Fabric of Democracy: Propaganda Textiles from the French Revolution to Brexit
Fashion and Textile Museum, London, 29 September 2023 – 3 March 2024

Curated by design historian Amber Butchart, this exhibition explores printed propaganda textiles over more than two centuries. Discover how fabric designers and manufacturers have responded to political upheaval from the French Revolution through to Brexit.

The mechanisation of textile industries from the mid-18th century led to the development of printing techniques that could create more detailed imagery on cloth, quicker than ever before. These increasingly affordable processes ‘democratised’ textile decoration, allowing governments, regimes, and corporations to harness the power of print to communicate, from wartime slogans to revolutionary ideals.

While propaganda is usually associated with public art and monumental sculpture, this exhibition explores how fabrics have been used as a political medium both in the home and on the body, through furnishing and fashion. Find out how textiles were used as a tool of the state across the political spectrum, from communism to fascism. Discover how a fraternal crisis in the monarchy played out on cloth, and how democracies promote national identity through textile design. On display will be textiles from countries including Britain, America, Italy, Germany, and Austria—ranging from French toile de Jouy to Japanese robes from the Asia-Pacific war, to Cultural Revolution-era Chinese fabrics rarely exhibited in the UK.

Amber Butchart is a curator, writer, and broadcaster who specialises in the cultural and political history of textiles and dress. She is a former Research Fellow at the University of the Arts London and is a regular public lecturer across the UK’s leading arts institutions. She researches and presents documentaries for television and radio, including the six-part series A Stitch in Time for BBC Four that fused biography, art, and the history of fashion to explore the lives of historical figures through the clothes they wore, and she is the history consultant and regular on-screen historian for BBC One’s Great British Sewing Bee. Amber is an external adviser for the National Crime Agency as a Forensic Garment Analyst, working on cases that require investigation of clothing and textiles. She has published five books on the history and culture of clothes, including The Fashion of Film, Nautical Chic, and a history of British fashion illustration for the British Library.

Now on view at the Fashion and Textile Museum:

Oh Boy! Boy’s Dress, 1760–1930
Fashion and Textile Museum, London, 29 September 2023 – 3 March 2024

The Fashion and Textile Museum is excited to present Oh Boy!, an exploration into historical boy’s dress. Curated by leading fashion historian Amy de la Haye, alongside renowned expert collector Alasdair Peebles, the exhibition presents an unrivalled collection of an often-undervalued area of fashion history, spread over two acts.

29 September — 16 December 2023
Act One: Breeched, No More Dresses explores the ceremony of entry into the masculine world, taking place after six years of age, as boys abandoned dresses in favour of breeches. Focusing on the period from 1760 to 1810, Act One presents a dimity gown and coat, a robust three-piece fustian breeches suit, and a block-printed skeleton suit, alongside other fascinating pieces.

21 December 2023 — 3 March 2024
Act Two: Ship Shape delves into the vogue for nautical wear dating from 1860 to 1930. Starting with a miniature suit that an admiral had made for his young son and including linen and wool serge suits, loosely inspired by naval dress, accompanied by accessories. The space will be imaginatively adorned, showcasing Alasdair’s skills as a decorative period interior painter and exploring the topic of collecting as narrative.

Amy de la Haye is Professor of Dress History & Curatorship, and joint director of the Centre for Fashion Curation at London College of Fashion (LCF). Recent and current projects include Gluck: Art & Identity at Brighton Museum (2017), Ravishing: The Rose in Fashion at MFIT (2021), Wild & Cultivated: Fashioning the Rose at London’s Garden Museum (2022), Making Mischief: Folk Costume in Britain at Compton Verney (2023), and Making More Mischief… at LCF Stratford (2024). She has published extensively and writes for SHOWstudio. Formerly she served as curator of 20th-century dress at the Victoria and Albert Museum with exhibitions including the radical Streetstyle: from sidewalk to catwalk (1994).

Alasdair Peebles works as a freelance decorative painter, specialising in hand-painted wallpapers and the restoration of painted finishes in Historic houses. For the last thirty years, he has built a private collection focused exclusively on boy’s and youth’s clothes from 1750 to 1950. He is currently co-authoring a book on men’s and boys’ dress for Bloomsbury. He has lectured widely, regularly lends clothing to museums for exhibitions and works with costume designers on period film projects including Little Women and Mary Poppins.

Now on view at the Concord Museum:

Interwoven: Women’s Lives Written in Thread
Concord Museum, 29 September 2023 — 25 February 2024

Our current special exhibition, Interwoven: Women’s Lives Written in Thread, highlights needlework produced by young women in New England and specifically the extraordinary collection of samplers at the Concord Museum. Featuring 30 samplers sewn in the early 1700s to mid-1800s, Interwoven explores how young women created records of their own lives and experiences, written in thread.

Detail of Sampler by Phebe Bliss, 1749 (Concord, MA: Concord Museum, gift of Mrs. Richard D. Boyer, T18).

The exhibition explores the history of needlework and embroidery, its importance as an art form, and its significance to women in the 18th and 19th centuries. Intended to showcase young women’s accomplishments, the samplers also communicate details of their lives and education, their communities, and their families. The exhibition provides a unique view into their private lives. For most of these young women, their samplers are the only objects that survive from their lives. Many of the samplers have never been displayed before.

Learn about the education of privileged young women in the early republic and understand how wealth and enslaved labor enabled them to pursue decorative arts. Explore the materials used in constructing samplers, such as linens, dyes and silk, and how and where these materials were produced. View samplers that demonstrate how women recorded family history and the loss of loved ones through needlework. Understand how they incorporated the importance of community and a strong sense of place in their samplers. The gallery includes areas for hands-on and interactive activities. Exhibition programs connect the history of samplers to contemporary work through visiting artists, demonstrations, workshops, and more.

Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, A Group of Shepherds and Their Animals, detail, ca.1650, brush and red-brown paint on paper with three crescents watermark, 43 × 57 cm (London: The British Museum, 1997,0607.10). The drawing was presented by Padre Antonio Piaggio to Sir William Hamilton and then sold at Christie’s in 1801. The subject is likely a biblical journey scene, a favorite of the artist.

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Now on view at The British Museum:

Superb Line: Prints and Drawings from Genoa, 1500–1800
The British Museum, London, 5 October 2023 — 1 April 2024

Showcasing prints and drawings from Genoa’s golden age, this display spotlights an artistic powerhouse that rivalled Venice, Florence, and Rome.

From the 16th to the 18th centuries, the port city of Genoa was one of Italy’s major artistic centres. Nicknamed ‘La Superba’ (‘the proud one’) by the Medieval poet Petrarch, it was among the wealthiest cities on the Italian peninsula, with strong trade links across Europe and beyond. These links and the riches they brought made Genoa a desirable destination for painters and sculptors wanting to study or find lucrative work. Superb Line opens with works by the first major arrival, Raphael’s pupil Perino del Vaga, who transformed the artistic scene when he came in 1528, introducing a new, modern manner seen in drawings like the Venus and Aeneas, which typifies his distinctive blend of graphic confidence and courtly stylishness.

Other prominent artists soon followed Perino’s lead and, over the next 150 years, the city continued to attract even bigger names like Rubens and van Dyck. This constant injection of new blood kept Genoa at the cutting edge of artistic trends, creating a nurturing environment for homegrown talents to develop in their own right. In the following centuries the city produced a steady stream of internationally renowned painters, among them Luca Cambiaso, Bernardo Strozzi, and Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, who were especially feted for their innovative, often experimental graphic works, wowing collectors with dazzling displays of line. Featuring highlights from the British Museum’s longstanding holdings of Genoese prints and drawings, this display celebrates the virtuosity and originality of the city’s artists.

Maurice Quentin de La Tour, Portrait of Gabriel Bernard de Rieux (detail), 1739–41, pastel and opaque watercolor on blue paper, laid down on canvas, unframed: 200 × 150 cm (Los Angeles: Getty Museum, 94.PC.39).

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Now on view at The Getty:

Untold Stories of a Monumental Pastel
Getty Center, Los Angeles, 3 October 2023 — 20 October 2024

One of the largest pastels made in the 18th century, Maurice Quentin de La Tour’s Portrait of Gabriel Bernard de Rieux is an astonishing object. In this colossal portrait, the ambitious La Tour (1704–1788) pushed pastel to new heights, capturing his sitter’s likeness and surrounding de Rieux with the trappings of his wealth: fine furniture, an extensive library, imported porcelain, and a globe turned to display the West coast of Africa. This focused exhibition highlights both La Tour’s technical achievement and the global reality that financed and furnished de Rieux’s world.