Dress is at the core of dance. It adorns dancers, defines various roles and forms symbolic expressions that, for example, either bind people together or opposes them. It is a communicative tool that gives crucial information for understanding the dance as well as the culture and the sociological effects of a group of people. As such, dress transcends how it is seen visually to address what is being communicated. Nonetheless, studies in ancient dance have rarely taken clothing into consideration. Therefore, this publication gathers articles that give new perspectives and insights on ancient dances and their ancient textiles. Comprehension of ancient dance benefits from investigations undertaken through the lens of dress. And research on ancient dress is understood through its relation to body movement and performative rituals, thus reinforcing the progressive integration of an anthropological and sociological dimension into historical analysis of ancient textiles. For the first time, the two-way transfer of knowledge between dance studies and costume studies is connected via an innovative approach. Among the issues that are specifically addressed are the movement design of dress for dance, its sensory experience, gender and identity, reenactment and reception. The chronological range of the publication is limited to the ancient world (3rd millennium BC to 5th century AD), and the geographical definition is meant to be broad in order to promote a comparative approach and cross-cultural dialogue, as well as discourse between fields and disciplines.

Textiles play a decisive role in history: attire not only indicates status, gender, ethnicity, and religion but illustrates how such boundaries are continuously being negotiated, shifted, and recreated. Fashionable Traditions captures the complex reality of Asian handmade textile production and consumption. From traditionalist discourse and cultural authenticity to fashion and market trends, the contributors to this collection demonstrate the multilayered influence of often contradictory forces. In-depth, ethnographic case studies reveal the entangled relationships between local artisans, external interventions, and consumers, while acknowledging the broader frameworks in which such relationships are situated. Together these stories offer a vivid account of the socio-economic, political, and cultural dynamics in various parts of Asia and emphasize that fashion is neither a Western prerogative nor do its roots reside solely in the West.

The first comprehensive history in English of film at the Bauhaus, exploring practices that experimented with film as an adaptable, elastic “polymedium.” With Design in Motion, Laura Frahm proposes an alternate history of the Bauhaus—one in which visual media, and film in particular, are crucial to the Bauhaus’s visionary pursuit of integrating art and technology. In the first comprehensive examination in English of film at the Bauhaus, Frahm shows that experimentation with film spanned a range of Bauhaus practices, from textiles and typography to stage and exhibition design. Indeed, Bauhausler deployed film as an adaptable, elastic “polymedium,” malleable in shape and form, unfolding and refracting into multiple material, aesthetic, and philosophical directions. Frahm shows how the encounter with film imbued the Bauhaus of the 1920s and early 1930s with a flexible notion of design, infusing painting with temporal concepts, sculptures with moving forms, photographs with sequential aesthetics, architectural designs with a choreography of movement. Frahm considers, among other things, student works that explored light and the transparent features of celluloid and cellophane; weaving practices that incorporate cellophane; experimental films, social documentaries, and critical reportage by Bauhaus women; and the proliferation of film strips in posters, book covers, and other typographic work. Viewing the Bauhaus’s engagement with film through a media-theoretic lens, Frahm shows how film became a medium for “design in motion.” Movement and process, rather than stability and fixity, become the defining characteristics of Bauhaus educational, aesthetic, and philosophical ethos.

Use color and thread to create the quilting of your dreams! With Color, Thread, & Free-motion Quilting, author Teri Lucas, a world-renowned master machine quilter, shares her brilliance and guidance to hone your machine quilting skills in a helpful, comprehensive, and understandable way. Quilters talk about building their fabric stashes but what about building their thread stashes, which is equally important? This book is a beautiful, well-guided and helpful resource for choosing threads––considering color, kind, and weight; choosing aids to help you quilt successfully; improving your free-motion quilting skills; and ultimately making free-motion quilting FUN! There are also lots of tips and tricks to help make your quilting enjoyable, playful, and frustration-free! Color, Thread & Free-motion Quilting is a comprehensive, go-to book that will be a staple resource in any quilter’s stash; I know it will be in mine!” ~ Pokey Bolton Thready or not! Learn how color, thread, and motif come together in machine quilting Compare actual quilted color wheels on a rainbow of various background fabrics Make your quilting a design element with solid quilting tips and color fundamentals

decorative arts & crafts.

From a holistic perspective, this handbook explores the design, development and production of smart textiles and textile electronics, breaking with the traditional silo-structure of smart textile research and development. Leading experts from different domains including textile production, electrical engineering, interaction design and human-computer interaction (HCI) address production processes in their entirety by exploring important concepts and topics like textile manufacturing, sensor and actuator development for textiles, the integration of electronics into textiles and the interaction with textiles. In addition, different application scenarios, where smart textiles play a key role, are presented too. Smart Textiles would be an ideal resource for researchers, designers and academics who are interested in understanding the overall process in creating viable smart textiles.

This globe-spanning history of sewing and embroidery, culture and protest, is “an astonishing feat . . . richly textured and moving” (The Sunday Times, UK). In 1970s Argentina, mothers marched in headscarves embroidered with the names of their “disappeared” children. In Tudor, England, when Mary, Queen of Scots, was under house arrest, her needlework carried her messages to the outside world. From the political propaganda of the Bayeux Tapestry, World War I soldiers coping with PTSD, and the maps sewn by schoolgirls in the New World, to the AIDS quilt, Hmong story clothes, and pink pussyhats, women and men have used the language of sewing to make their voices heard, even in the most desperate of circumstances. Threads of Life is a chronicle of identity, memory, power, and politics told through the stories of needlework. Clare Hunter, master of the craft, threads her own narrative as she takes us over centuries and across continents—from medieval France to contemporary Mexico and the United States, and from a POW camp in Singapore to a family attic in Scotland—to celebrate the universal beauty and power of sewing.

Understanding the techniques for joining fabrics together in a way that considers durability, strength, leak-tightness, comfort in wear and the aesthetics of the joints is critical to the production of successful, structurally secure fabric products. Joining textiles: Principles and applications is an authoritative guide to the key theories and methods used to join fabrics efficiently.Part one provides a clear overview of sewing technology. The mechanics of stitching, sewing and problems related to sewn textiles are discussed, along with mechanisms of sewing machines and intelligent sewing systems. Part two goes on to explore adhesive bonding of textiles, including principles, methods and applications, along with a review of bonding requirements in coating and laminating of textiles. Welding technologies are the focus of part three. Heat sealing, ultrasonic and dielectric textile welding are covered, as are laser seaming of fabrics and the properties and performance of welded or bonded seams. Finally, part four reviews applications of joining textiles such as seams in non-iron shirts and car seat coverings, joining of wearable electronic components and technical textiles, and the joining techniques involved in industrial and medical products including nonwoven materials.With its distinguished editors and international team of expert contributors, Joining textiles is an important reference work for textile product manufacturers, designers and technologists, fibre scientists, textile engineers and academics working in this area. - Provides an authoritative guide to the key theories and methods used to efficiently join fabrics - Discusses the mechanics of stitching and sewing and problems related to sewn textiles, alongside mechanisms of sewing machines, and intelligent sewing systems - Explores adhesive bonding of textiles, including principles, methods and applications, along with a review of bonding requirements in coating and laminating of textiles

In this visually rich volume, Mariah Proctor-Tiffany reconstructs the art collection and material culture of the fourteenth-century French queen Clémence de Hongrie, illuminating the way the royal widow gave objects as part of a deliberate strategy to create a lasting legacy for herself and her family in medieval Paris. After the sudden death of her husband, King Louis X, and the loss of her promised income, young Clémence fought for her high social status by harnessing the visual power of possessions, displaying them, and offering her luxurious objects as gifts. Clémence adeptly performed the role of queen, making a powerful argument for her place at court and her income as she adorned her body, the altars of her chapels, and her dining tables with sculptures, paintings, extravagant textiles, manuscripts, and jewelry—the exclusive accoutrements of royalty. Proctor-Tiffany analyzes the queen’s collection, maps the geographic trajectories of her gifts of art, and interprets Clémence’s generosity using anthropological theories of exchange and gift giving. Engaging with the art inventory of a medieval French woman, this lavishly illustrated microhistory sheds light on the material and social culture of the late Middle Ages. Scholars and students of medieval art, women’s studies, digital mapping, and the anthropology of ritual and gift giving especially will welcome Proctor-Tiffany’s meticulous research.