BA1 CLASS READING - INTRODUCTION TO TEXTILES AND CULTURE  - THE TIES THAT BIND (THE SOCIAL MEANINGS OF TEXTILES) GROUP SEMINAR PRESENTATION - this reading is extracts (...) from the set text.

THE SOCIAL MEANINGS OF TEXTILES

Family ties

Textiles bond us to our families in varying ways. Sometimes, they 'tie' individuals to the spirit of their ancestors. The Tuvan reindeer herders of Mongolia make this very literal; they use 'magic' knots in their spiritual practices in order to keep themselves with ancestral energies. The Navajo made ties on their looms for the same purpose, and the Toraja of Sulawesi, Indonesia wove ceremonial garments featuring patterns believed to connect wearers with both the living and those who had gone before ...

Families anticipating the birth of a child expend energy on amassing the appropriate baby textiles; they must lay in a supply of blankets, diapers, and clothing for a growing infant. The preparation process was particularly demanding in the era before mass production, as the recommendations in the 1838 manual 'The Workwoman's Guide' make clear. Susan Hathorn, a sailing captain's wife who kept a diary of her daily activities in 1855, conformed fairly closely to these guidelines. Working almost daily, she started sewing in June for a baby born December 1 ...

When family members are far away and want to send a 'piece' of themselves back home, they often chose a textile. It is lightweight and thus easy to carry or ship, but, again, the associative power of the cloth is more important than its practicality. Soldiers fighting in World Wars I and II often sent handkerchiefs or pillow covers to their wives or mothers because they could anticipate those items in use; a handkerchief sent to a lover might, for example, be worn close to her body. The cloth was a stand-in, an embodiment of the relationship between the individuals. The impetus for deployed soldiers to send souvenir handkerchiefs was so strong that businesses sprung up to supply them. During World War I, the French provided the Allied troops with textiles marked with statements such as 'Souvenir of the Great War' ... Other cloths included phrases such as 'To My Dear Sweetheart'. (Gordon, 2013, pp.116-21).

Love, sex and friendship

Small textile gifts play many roles in furthering intimacy. Handkerchiefs were long used as love tokens or betrothal gifts ... 

Intimacy also extends to friendship. Women who wanted to express their mutual regard in 19th-century Europe and America sometimes gave one another novelty handkerchiefs as well ... Early in the century, friends sometimes gave maternity 'pin pillows' to a mother-to-be. They inserted pins in attractive patterns, spelling out messages such as 'Welcome Little Stranger' (in this pre-industrial period, pins were quite valuable, so the gift was practical as well as appealing) ...

Many of our most intimate relationships, of course, have a sexual component ... Red thread is equated with blood and the life force and, by extension, with human passion ... Rinzai Zen practitioners tie a red thread around a bride's wrist as a sign of a fruitful union and a frank acknowledgment of its sexuality ... Even by itself, the colour red stands for fertility, to the point that in many parts of the world a woman who has reached menopause is expected to forego the colour and wear only sombre hues.

When the colour red is incorporated into fringe that sways on a woman's skirt (apron), it draws particular attention to the genital area ... Tassels and fringe hold the quality of sexual promise, even today. Amazigh brides are dressed in belts with hanging tassels, and Hopi brides carry sashes with long fringes ... Examples of sexual strings can be seen in contemporary Western culture as well: G-strings worn by exotic dancers, for example, and the tasseled 'pasties' that might swing from their nipples ...

The netted veils attached to women's hats in the mid-20th-century also relate to string and sexual allure. These nets did not really hide the face, but cast over it a sense of mystery and drama. They were in essence like see-through lingerie, displaced to an area of the body that was not off-limits. These were related to the transparent veil of the Western bride, which was itself a modification of the ancient tradition of veiling the face with an opaque covering. In many cultures, the bride's face is not revealed to the groom until the wedding is complete, when she is available to him sexually. (Gordon, 2013, pp.121-3).


Sharing work, forging bonds

The act of preparing a textile such as a friendship quilt is also an important way of furthering a sense of group cohesion. People bond easily with one another when they are engaged in shared work. Because textile production took so much of people's time in the pre-industrial period, this kind of experience was a significant part of daily life throughout the world ... women in the Neolithic and early Bronze ages worked together on textile tasks ... Groups of women working together are also represented in classical Greek art, and large numbers of loom weights have been found in the women's sections of ancient Greek buildings, indicating that many women (probably slaves as well as wealthier householders) gathered to spin and weave ...


We can point to many more recent examples of shared fibrework that bond communities together. Where textile tools are portable, women from a given town will often carry their equipment to a central location or to a friend's house so they can work together. They talk while they are working, and their children play together ...


The pleasure of working side by side creating textiles is equally evident in today's burgeoning craft groups. Knitters, whose work is especially portable, show up in large numbers to attend club or guild meetings, or even to cafes or shops that advertise drop-in knotting times ...


European based cultures developed 'bees' for tasks that could profit from concerted group labour. Many of us may be familiar with the quilting bee, where a woman who had finished making a pieced or appliquéd quilt top would call together group of community women to put in the actual quilting stitches. The bee usually entailed six to eight individuals who sat close to one another a quilting frame and worked steadily for a number of hours. (Gordon, 2013, pp.131-3).

REFERENCE

Gordon, B. (2013 [2011] ) Textiles. The whole story - uses, meaning, significance. London: Thames and Hudson.