This book presents one hundred of the finest textiles and fashion arts produced by weavers, embroiderers, and designers around the globe. Twenty-nine short essays introduce some of the major techniques and genres that textile makers have invented over the past twenty-five hundred years of human history.--[book cover].

This Bulletin discusses the Met's extensive collection of Renaissance textile pattern books, used primarily by women to embroider clothes and accessories. The practice of embroidery was seen as a virtuous endeavor, and textile pattern books, published with great frequency from the 1520s onward, were designed to inspire, instruct, and encourage "beautiful and virtuous women" in this esteemed practice. Straddling the disciplines of early printmaking, ornament design, and textile decoration, these works help shed light on the crucial period when the concept of fashion as a means of distinguishing individual identity became fixed in Western society.

Coveted by museum curators and private collectors alike, these striking velvety embroidered raffia cloths and ceremonial appliqu skirts were created deep in the heart of the Congo by the Kuba people. The intricate, eye-dazzling abstract designs, executed in an appealing palette of vegetal dyes, have inspired innumerable artists and designers including Paul Klee, Henry Matisse, Eduardo Chillida, Georges Braque, and Tristan Tzara. A value guide makes it an invaluable reference for collectors.

The ultimate guide to manipulating, coloring, and embellishing fabrics. Discover nearly 50 fabulous techniques for creating one-of-a-kind designer fabrics using your imagination as the guide.

Vintage Details is a stunning collection of over 550 beautifully photographed details from previously unseen 20th-century vintage clothing. The images are arranged by detail: necklines, collars, sleeves, cuffs, pockets, hems, darts and fitting devices, stitching, fastenings and buttonholes, pleats, frills and flounces, embellishment, texture, and print. Inner construction shots will also be included, along with images of the full garments providing context for the details shown. Easy to navigate and packed full of inspirational images, this book will become an indispensable reference to vintage detailing for fashion design students and professionals.

"This stunning book offers a unique perspective on textile designs... a beautiful document of the partnership between artists and manufacturers. Those interested in textiles as well as students of design will find it refreshing and inspirational." Librar

A mother stitches a few lines of prayer into a bedcover for her son serving in the Union army during the Civil War. A formerly enslaved African American woman creates a quilt populated by Biblical figures alongside celestial events. A Diné women weaves a blanket for a U.S. Army soldier stationed in the Southwest. A quilted Lady Liberty, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln mark the resignation of Richard Nixon. These are just a few of the diverse and sometimes hidden stories of the American experience told by quilts and bedcovers from the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Spanning more than four hundred years, the fifty-six works of textile art in this book express the personal narratives of their makers and owners and connect to broader stories of global trade, immigration, industry, marginalization, and territorial and cultural expansion. Made by Americans of European, African, Native, and Hispanic heritage, these engaging works of art range from family heirlooms to acts of political protest, each with its own story to tell.