Search results for ""Author Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood""

For hundreds of years, skilled craftspeople in the Syrian centers of Aleppo, Damascus, and Homs produced intricately woven textiles for the royal courts, worldly merchants, and elite Bedouin families of the Ottoman Empire. City dwellers were renowned for wearing brightly colored silk garments that glittered with gold and silver threads. By contrast, nomadic Bedouins wore woolen garments in hues and designs reflecting their desert lifestyle. The allure of these garments stems from the technical virtuosity with which they were woven and the aesthetic beauty of their drape and stylized designs. Dressed with Distinction offers a window onto the history of textile production in the Middle East during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, until political and social changes led to the dominance of Western-style commercially manufactured attire. In addition to articulating the social and seasonal contexts in which the garments were worn, this book examines the styles of dress of women, men, and children in Ottoman Syria, including cloaks (abaya), head coverings (hatta), women’s body coverings (carsaf), and jackets (qumbas).

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This is the first reference work to describe the history of embroidery throughout Central Asia, the Iranian Plateau and the Indian Subcontinent from the medieval period through to the present. It offers an authoritative guide to all the major embroidery traditions of the region and a detailed examination of the material, technical, artistic and design dimensions of the subject, including its use by today’s fashion designers. For millennia, the peoples of Central Asian, the Iranian Plateau and the Indian Subcontinent have migrated and traded along the multiple strands of the Silk Road, both north–south and east–west. This history of contact has found rich expression within the arts and crafts of the region and particularly in the heritage of embroidery which has sat at the heart of the social and cultural lives of these diverse communities. Embroidery has been produced to decorate individuals, their families, their clients, their homes and public spaces and has reflected economic and political changes over time as well as social, religious and artistic contexts. Generously illustrated with 500 images (over 450 in colour) of clothes, accessories, and examples of decorated soft furnishings such as cushions, bed linen, curtains, floor coverings and wall hangings, the Encyclopedia is an essential resource for students and scholars of the subject. This volume is the second in the Bloomsbury World Encyclopedia of Embroidery series. The first volume, on embroidery from the Arab World, won the 2017 Dartmouth Medal, awarded by the American Library Association for a reference work of outstanding quality and significance.

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The subject of veiling and face veil is nowadays one of the most controversial topics in the media and the public domain. Most people, and especially politicians and journalists, in both Muslim and non-Muslim societies, seem to have a strong opinion about it. Many books and articles have been written about the question as to why women wear a face veil and whether or not it represents a form of oppression. In contrast, there is very little information about the face veils themselves, the various types and the regional variations. This book describes and illustrates the history of face veils, from its pre-Islamic origins to the present day. It tells about the many regional variations, from Morocco in the far west to Central Asia in the northeast. It emphasises the role of face veils as a form of dress and identity, rather than a garment that conceals an individual's persona. Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood (Ph.D. Manchester, 1989) is director of the Textile Research Centre, Leiden, the Netherlands. She is a textile and dress historian specializing in the Middle Eastern dress, notably archaeological items from ancient and medieval Egypt. She has been working in the field of veils and veiling since the early 1980s. Willem Vogelsang (Ph.D. Groningen, 1990) is the former curator for Southwest and Central Asia of the National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden, the Netherlands. He is now cultural and regional advisor to the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and mainly works in Uruzgan, Afghanistan. His interests focus on the archaeology, history, culture and political developments in Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. One of his main publications is The Afghans (Oxford 2002; updated reprint 2008).

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For centuries, the peoples of Sub-Saharan Africa have been producing domestic and professional embroidery to decorate themselves, their families, clients, homes and public spaces. Embroidery is an expression of artistic, personal, family, regional and even political creativity which has played an important role in the social and cultural lives of people throughout the region. It has also reflected economic and political changes over time as well as social, religious and artistic contexts. This is the first reference work to describe the history of embroidery throughout Africa south of the Sahara from the early modern period through to the present. From quilted armour to embroidered caps and leather sandals, it offers an authoritative guide to all the major embroidery traditions of the region and a detailed examination of the material, technical, artistic and design dimensions of the subject. Generously illustrated with 395 images (362 in colour) of clothes, accessories, and examples of decorated soft furnishings such as cushions, bed linen, curtains, floor coverings and wall hangings, the Encyclopedia is an essential resource for students and scholars of the subject. This volume is part of the Bloomsbury World Encyclopedia of Embroidery series. The first volume, on embroidery from the Arab World, won the 2017 Dartmouth Medal, awarded by the American Library Association for a reference work of outstanding quality and significance.

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