Saddle blankets — placed under the saddle to protect the horse from chafing and pressure from the saddle — continued to be used by the Navajo long after handwoven garments became impractical. By the 1950s, when this blanket was woven, the dramatic shoulder blankets for which the Navajo are famous were made far more frequently...

This English trumpeter’s banner dates to the mid-19th century. The crest, or the coat of arms of Great Britain, is flanked by the lion and the unicorn, the symbols of England and Scotland. Additionally, the motto of the English chivalric Order of the Garter, “Honi soit qui mal y pense,” and the motto of the...

In pre-industrial Japan, aprons were a basic element of everyday dress, worn by children and adults to protect one’s clothing, which was infrequently cleaned. Some form of apron was worn by workers of all sorts, from shop-keeping to field work to fishing. Like other work clothes, aprons were often made of repurposed cloth, as this...

In the 1960s, Heal Fabrics was London’s most avant-garde textile producer, and Barbara Brown was its most prominent designer. Trained at the Canterbury College of Art and the Royal College of Art, she began designing for Heal in 1958 and continued into the early 1970s. Brown’s distinctive style pioneered the fashion for bold geometric patterns...

Author: Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada This is a page from the book The Japanese Art of “Kusaki-zome,” Nippon Colours: Dyeing in a Hundred Colours with Juices of Plants and Grasses, by Akira Yamazaki, grandfather of my colleague Kazuki Yamazaki, who is, along with his father, Seiju Yamazaki, among the foremost authorities in Japanese natural dyeing and...

Alexander Girard (American, 1907–1993) was one of the leading American textile designers of the mid-century period, and was a strong proponent of bringing an affordable modernism to the middle class. Girard was the head of the Textile Division of Herman Miller Inc. from 1952 to 1973, where he worked alongside Charles and Ray Eames and...

In all of the many areas of design Gere Kavanaugh has tackled, from commercial interiors and exhibitions to furniture, textiles and wallcoverings to typefaces to toys, she is noted for her vibrant use of color and sense of play. She is inspired by folk art, and co-curated the exhibition “Home Sweet Home: American Domestic Vernacular...

Author: Lila Stone September is New York Textile Month! In celebration, members of the Textile Society of America will author Object of the Day for the month. A non-profit professional organization of scholars, educators, and artists in the field of textiles, TSA provides an international forum for the exchange and dissemination of information about textiles...

Author: Christine Giuntini September is New York Textile Month! In celebration, members of the Textile Society of America will author Object of the Day for the month. A non-profit professional organization of scholars, educators, and artists in the field of textiles, TSA provides an international forum for the exchange and dissemination of information about textiles...