A happy group of members spent a fascinating day at the Costessey Centre recently learning about the history of knitwear under the expert tutelage of designer and Resource Collection Coordinator Isobel Auker and ex-C&TA Chair Joy Evitt. 

It was a beautiful sunny Spring morning and Isobel and Joy had pulled together a wealth of textile treasure for us to learn about and examine.  When we arrived the room was packed with fascinating and beautifully presented resources, providing an inspiring environment right from the off. 

Joy began by giving us a brief history of the development of knitwear, from the earliest evidence of handknitting, through the rise of knitted garments as a saleable commodity and important cottage industry in the Middle Ages, the development of frame knitting and industrialisation of knitting processes, to the invention of the latch hook in the late C19th, which enabled circular knitting to be done at enormous speed and revolutionised the industry.  On the way she also drew in the importance of knitting as a social activity, which saw enormous popularity in the Victorian era, and the way in which increasingly sophisticated industrial machinery during the C20th had spurred haute couture designers to make innovative creative use of knitwear in their collections.  She and Isobel had recently visited the Framework Knitters Museum at Ruddington, near Nottingham, and they had both found this fascinating and inspired us all to go! 

Isobel followed this wonderful historical tour with some more detailed information about the construction of particular historical knitted garments: the kind of (k)nitty-gritty detail that C&TA members love! We learnt about the development of shaping in stockings, and she also showed us some beautiful examples of C16th felted caps that she had made.  These were knitted and then felted to be waterproof, and the Cappers' Act in 1571 decreed that everyone above the age of 6 had to wear one.  The designs were strictly controlled to denote social status, whilst also maintaining a very profitable monopoly for the Cappers' guild!

Next, Stephen Shayler, who helps to maintain the C&TA resource collection, gave us a wonderful guide to the many beautiful knitted garments that had been displayed for us to look at, which included underwear, swimwear, hand knits, designer items and accessories.  It was a real privilege to have access to all these fabulous garments, as well as to the historical information and resources and knitting machinery that the team had collected for us to look at.  There was even a demonstration of two privately owned circular knitting machines, one of which had been beautifully restored by the owner himself.

Everyone then had a chance to look more closely at all these resources and even to try out some of the knitting machinery, before each selecting an individual item to focus on in more detail.  The team provided a very useful framework to lead us in our 'detective' work, really encouraging us to interrogate the items closely and to think carefully about how and why, as well as when, they were made.  It was this unusual and privileged hands-on access to important, historic garments that truly seems to inspire our members, and there was a real atmosphere of focused attention while people investigated their chosen items, punctuated by frequent sighs of pleasure!

The day ended with a session in which to feedback our findings and enjoy each others' insights into the garments we had looked at, as well as giving the opportunity for wider discussion and to ask questions about both the resources collection and knitwear in general.  Everyone left the session feeling that they had a deeper appreciation and understanding of the work that went into the construction of these clothes and accessories, and aware of the wealth of experience and commitment to conservation and education that is the basis of the work of the C&TA.  Thank you Isobel, Joy, Stephen and Prue for all your hard work and generosity.

​This led to some lively discussion about the preservation of the past and obsession with the new and the perfect - our crafty chatters are often a philosophical lot!

For those interested in visiting Dennis Severs' house, at 18, Folgate St., you can find more information here - the experience came highly recommended.  https://www.dennissevershouse.co.uk/
​And for textile enthusiasts, look out for the blue plaque telling you that the famous eighteenth century silk designed Anna Maria Garthwaite lived in the house next door!

On the 14th March a large group of members gathered at The Costessey Centre to hear a very interesting talk by John Miners.

John grew up in a textiles family in Halstead, Essex, where his father Peter, like many members of the community, worked at the Courtaulds mill.  Courtaulds had been an incredibly successful company during the nineteenth century, producing high quality silks and later, black silk mourning crepe.  In the early twentieth century they were one of the first companies to investigate the use of artificial fibres such as viscose, and when John himself joined the company on leaving school, the Halstead works was one of three thriving Essex sites belonging to one of the world's largest textile manufacturers.

​In a world where reproductions of historic designs are now so popular, it is easy to imagine that these fabrics were perhaps ahead of their time.  Our members were certainly delighted to see them up close and spent a wonderful half hour examining the fabrics in detail and choosing their favourites!  John is the custodian of an impressive archive of samples, some of which never went into production, and it was a real privilege to be allowed to share them with him.

Julia also told us about her historical costume making: she is a member of the Sutton Hoo Interpretation Textile Group in Suffolk, and volunteers regularly with the Textiles Team there, modelling Anglo-Saxon clothes that they have made themselves and helping visitors to understand more about the daily life of Anglo-Saxon people.  She showed us the dress that she has made from nettle fibre and linen, decorated with beautiful embroidery, and it really inspired us all to visit the wonderful museum at Sutton Hoo to see both the site of the ship burial there and also the full size re-creation of the original ship which is currently taking place in nearby Woodbridge.

There was lots of other chat too - we admired Jane's sheep bunting (yes, bunting made of tiny sheep!) and Jackie's beautiful dragon quilt, and also heard about the UNESCO-backed initiative called 'Living Heritage in the UK'.  This is a government supported project to record and preserve 'intangible' aspects of heritage in the UK, and covers many arts and crafts.  Further details can be found on their website at ​https://livingheritage.unesco.org.uk/ ​

 ​These fascinating questions led to a lot of useful discussion and many suggestions about ways in which the collection might be used in the future, and made many of us eager to see it for ourselves.  Jessica explained that although the collection has not yet been digitised, it is possible to go to the Courtauld Library to see items - anyone interested should contact them on library@courtauld.ac.uk or can contact Jessica at Jessica.Gasson@courtauld.ac.uk 

Last Saturday C&TA members gathered for our first in-person event of the year at the Town Close Auditorium at Norwich Castle to hear ex-Chair Joy Evitt deliver a wonderful talk about French fashion designer Madeleine Vionnet.

​Joy has been researching the life and work of Vionnet with great enthusiasm, and clearly feels that although she is not perhaps a household name in the same way as Chanel or Dior, she has been equally influential in her impact on fashion and indeed on social attitudes to the female form, and should be equally well-known.  

 She took us through a detailed outline of Vionnet's career, which started at the age of 11 working for a local dressmaker in Aubervilliers.  Her skill was recognised at an early age and she soon moved on to fashion houses in both England and Paris, spending time working on the lavish embroidery and antique lace favoured by Mme Gerber and her sisters at Callot Soeurs, before being poached from there in 1907 to work for Jacques Douçet.  However, by this time Vionnet, who had already experienced the collapse of an unhappy early marriage and loss of a child, was developing strong feelings about the female form, and refusing to use corsetry in her designs in the way Douçet demanded, she set up her own fashion house in 1912.

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​Vionnet was also very influential in improving the legal rights of fashion designers over their products, making use of clever photography to record her designs and only allowing very few licensed copies to be made of her garments.  This began the establishment of copyright for Haute Couture.  In addition, by launching a collection of 'repeated original' labels in New York in the late 1920s, Vionnet laid the foundations for the creation of quality ready-to-wear clothing.

Joy's admiration for Vionnet was very clear.  The designer's skill was phenomenal: Balenciaga, whom she mentored,  called her 'his master' and her fashion house at 50, Avenue Montaigne was known as 'The Temple of Fashion'.  Designs such as the 'Greek Vase Dress' and the stunning 'Carnival Dress' are now iconic, and her influence on the graphically shaped and draped clothing of modern designers such as Issey Miyake is obvious.  Joy is of the opinion that Madeleine Vionnet should be much more widely fêted, and after hearing her fascinating lecture, we are inclined to agree.

​​Toni is an artist and maker with a wealth of practical experience of blackwork, and as well as explaining the changes in fashion and technique that she has documented, she was also able to give detailed insight into the way in which these designs were executed.  She finished with a description of the stunning 'Falkland Waistcoat', a rare extant garment now in the possession of the V&A, which is a particular focus of her research in an attempt to eventually be able to reproduce her own precise copy of it.  Her enthusiasm for this beautifully decorative embroidery shone through her talk, and kept us all enthralled!

if you wish to find out more about Toni's work, join her mailing list from her website here: blackworkembroidery.org 

The C&TA trustees were honoured to be asked by the Forum Trust and American Library in Norwich to help put together a costume display as part of the Silverwings Exhibition mounted in the Forum to mark the 80th anniversary of the 'friendly invasion' of USAF personnel to East Anglian Airfields during WWII.  

The free Exhibition filled the Forum Atrium and Gallery for nine days of special events and thousands of people visited to remember and share stories and recollections of different experiences of wartime Britain.

We also offered visitors the chance to try on WWII outfits, and a collection of Hollywood dressmaking patterns prompted many memories of rationing, and how women would make-do and mend.  The wedding dress in the picture below was made from parachute silk.  Another had images of humpty dumpty woven into the silk, demonstrating the creativity and ability to make something beautiful out of the most unlikely materials and in the toughest circumstances.

It was clear that the exhibition was extremely successful as many people stood and talked about their parents' experiences and remembered their own childhoods.  Whilst for the younger generation seeing photographs, artefacts  and original clothes worn by the young people of the 1940s brought the wartime era sharply into focus and their stories came to life again.