Coarse Shifts and Fine Silks: The Clothes of Mount Vernon: Threads of Survival Episode #36
Jo Andrews
Clothes are a window on our identity – they tell others who we are, what we believe in, whether we are rich or poor, powerful or powerless. They also tell us a great deal about who someone is, whether they are tall or short, skinny or full bodied, and what sort of life they lead, one of leisure or one of unremitting hard work. These clues make garments and textiles a wonderful way to understand the people of the past, what their lives were really like and who they were.
Stitches by Candlelight: Mary, Queen of Scots in Fabric and Embroidery: Threads of Survival: Episode #35
Jo Andrews
Mary Queen of Scots is one of the most written about women in history. We think we know her well – but here’s a new account that re-interprets her life from the point of view of the textiles she wore and the embroideries she stitched. It casts a completely different light on her difficult existence and brings her fully into focus as a living, breathing human being. Here is a renaissance queen displaying her power in violet taffeta and purple velvet, who wore silver to mourn, black to display her statesmanship, and white for innocence and piety
Returning the Spirit of a Soldier: Japan’s Yosegaki Hinomaru Flags – Threads of Survival: Episode #34
Jo Andrews
A ragged and torn flag, nearly eighty years old was posted last month from a home not far from London. It doesn’t look like much, but it is infinitely precious, both to the person who sent it and to the family in Japan that created it. If the family can be found, this flag may be the only thing that remains of their brother, father, uncle or grandfather who went missing in the Second World War. If it is returned to them they will have something to mourn after all these years.
The woman who posted it is the daughter of a British soldier who fought the Japanese in the War. She hopes the flag can be repatriated and she says in her letter: “I have no illusion how my father came by this flag but I do hope that somehow, just maybe we can put a tiny piece of the horror of war to rest.”
Strong Community Threads: The Folly Cove Designers – Threads of Survival: Episode #33
Jo Andrews
Imagine the person who sits behind the counter in the post office or serves your coffee in the local coffee shop has a superpower, one that she shares with your child’s teacher, the administrator in the building company up the road, and the nurse you met last week at the clinic. All of them are talented textile designers, part of a community that works to the highest standards and turns out designs that bears comparison with the best being produced in America.
The Secret Life of Second Hand Clothes – Threads of Survival: Episode #32
Jo Andrews
What happens to your old clothes? Do you drop them off at the charity shop or turn them into the textile re-cycling bin at the store? They leave your wardrobe and your thoughts – but what happens next and where do they end up? This episode of Haptic & Hue’s Tales of Textiles wraps up old clothes, flea markets, the invention of special form of jazz, the horror of today’s textile excess and glimmers of hope for the future
The Long And Winding Road of Lace – Threads of Survival: Episode #31
Jo Andrews
The long arc of human history has been accompanied since the 1400s one way or another by lace. The Italians call this, delightfully, ‘Stitches in Air’ and it has many origin myths from the Venice lagoon to the gentle rolling countryside of northern Europe. It has been smuggled and stolen, worn and desired by kings and cavaliers, by maids and madmen. It has been painted and preserved and the songs and rhymes of lace makers have been passed down the generations.
Pears and Pomegranates – Threads of Survival: Episode #30
Jo Andrews
The Italian Renaissance produced glorious masterpieces by artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Michaelangelo who are justly feted for their talent. But look again at these pictures and you realise that they show the work of other artists as well, artists whose work was hugely skilled, well rewarded, and just as valued by the elite of the day who could afford to buy it. But the names of these spinners and dyers, the weavers and embroiderers are lost to us, and their work has largely crumbled to dust. This episode is about them and the painters who depicted the marvels they could create by hand.
Fabric and Foundlings – Threads of Survival: Episode #29
Jo Andrews
In 18th century London, the secret of your birth might hang by a thread. If your mother took you to the Foundling Hospital because she was unable to care for you, you were immediately given a new identity to avoid any shame. But in case she was later able to reclaim you, she left a token, often a textile cut in two. She kept the other half as a way of proving she was your mother. Often it was just a scrap of cloth and it was the only thing to show the link between the two of you.
The Refugees Who Dazzled London – Threads of Survival #Episode 28
Jo Andrews
We have watched in horror as more than ten million people have fled their homes in Ukraine to escape the Russian invasion. They have become the world’s latest refugees. It’s a word that was first applied hundreds of years ago to some of the most skilled and expert handweavers who began arriving in London in the 1600s to escape death and persecution in France. This is the story of how these forced migrants – known as Huguenots – dazzled London, and created some of the world’s most complex and beautiful silk fabric. It is also a tale of hope and resilience in a time of difficulty and darkness.
Introduction to Season 4 – Threads of Survival #Episode 27
Jo Andrews
Welcome to the fourth season of Haptic and Hue’s Tales of Textiles. This season is called Threads of Survival and the episodes focus on people, and their textiles, who have seen hardship and difficulty, but who have survived and often flourished against the odds. This introduction sets the context for the season and provides a mini-guide to the thinking behind the episodes.
Images from Haptic and Hue’s fourth season of podcasts – Threads of Survival