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Contents
OATG Meetings 3
Phyllis Nye - An Appreciation
By Ruth Barnes 4-5
New Editor takes over 5-6
News 7-10
Japanese Fukusa textiles from the Meiji Period
By Hiroko McDermott 12-17
Japanese wrapping textiles at the Horniman
By Fiona Kerlogue 18-19
Cataloguing Iranian textiles at the V&A
By Jennifer Wearden 20-21
The BM store and Lesley Pullen collection 22-23
Mary Kinipple’s Tibetan collection 24-25
Book reviews 26-30
UK and overseas Events 31
EDITORIAL
This issue of the newsletter contains several fascinating articles on Japanese textiles.
Hiroko McDermott’s article on fukusa coverlets shows that Western buyers and collectors
were intensely interested in these wonderful fabrics almost as soon as Japan
began to open up to foreign trade in the second half of the nineteenth century.
She describes a golden age, when beautiful examples could be found in
back-street shops at very low prices. Interestingly, she also reveals that most of the
embroiderers, such as Nagara Yozo whose photograph is on the newsletter’s front
cover, were men.
Fiona Kerlogue, in her article about the Japanese wrapping textiles on show
at the Horniman Museum, shows how they were used to indicate social status,
gender and respect.
And bringing things right up to date, we have an item about Jun Tomita, a
master in the art of kasuri — the Japanese form of ikat weaving. Tomita, who has
lived and taught in England, weaves extraordinarily delicate fabrics of the most
subtle designs and adds to their mysterious abstract qualities by painting directly
onto them.
In the next issue I hope to outline my ideas on how the newsletter should
go forward. For now, it only remains to thanks Phyllis Nye for her sterling work in
editing it since its inception—see Ruth Barnes’s appreciation on page 4.