Haptic & Hue

Latest Episodes:

What Samplers Tell Us About the Hands That Made Them Jan 13, 2022

Show notes

Samplers tell stories in stitch, but whose tale are they telling? Perhaps the story of a young woman describing her family and choosing her own patterns and pictures, a child learning her alphabet and numbers by stitching. Or maybe it's an anonymous sampler from a woman being prepared for a role in which she will spend a life stitching other people's stories, effacing her identity, working as a seamstress or a servant.

This episode of Haptic and Hue looks at how women in the past were united by their ability to use a needle. From the grandest monarch to the poorest maid they could all sew, it was a common language – one that they were fluent in and often better at than forming letters and numbers with a pen or pencil. It gave them a way of thinking that we have all but lost.

But what they sewed divided them. Middle-class women were urged to create a home with berlin wool-work, firescreens, and antimacassars, or handstitched gifts demonstrating their skill and devotion. Even Queen Victoria stitched and gave away her handiwork while working-class women were prepared for a life of earning their living from the needle – working as seamstresses or mending clothing, stitching other people's initials onto table linen, and family laundry.

Find out more about how the needle and sewing united and divided women in this episode of Haptic and Hue's Tales of Textiles.

You can find a full script of this episode, on the Haptic and Hue Website at https://hapticandhue.com/tales-of-textiles-series-3/ as well as links and resources to the people you hear in this podcast and the organisations they work for.

Shoddy: The Once and Future King Nov 18, 2021

Show notes

There's a way of producing cloth that has been called 200 years of secrecy and lies. It has played a central role in wars, and slavery. It was the foundation of cheaper clothing and clothes rationing. It has changed laws and been the subject of many official inquiries as well as helping to grow the finest rhubarb in the world. This episode looks at how it may now be entering a new phase of its life, offering us a way to prevent our addiction to textiles from ruining the planet.

Shoddy cloth and its sister mungo were first produced in Batley in West Yorkshire, a town that became so filthy from the trade they said the birds flew backward to stop the soot from getting in their eyes. Shoddy production made this part of West Yorkshire's fortune in the 19th and 20th centuries but also bought a myriad of problems – from accusations of moral hazard to charges of war profiteering and smuggling.

This episode looks at shoddy's past – its role in the American Civil War and in creating West Yorkshire's wealth. It also looks at how shoddy, as the ultimate recycled material, is now being recast as the perfect way to cut pollution from textile waste.

If you would like to find out more about shoddy and see some of the pictures referred to in this episode or read the full script – you can find them in the show notes at www.hapticandhue.com/listen, where you can also find links to books about shoddy and access to Haptic and Hue's textile bookshop, which has a selection of the best textile books in publication at the moment. Every purchase helps the podcast at no extra cost to you.

The bookshop for US listeners is here.

The bookshop for UK listeners is here

Lyon: City of Silk Nov 04, 2021

Show notes

How do textiles shape a city, and how, in turn, does a city and its people shape and change the world of textiles? This episode looks at what the fabrics created in Lyon, in France, tell us about the lives of the people who lived and worked here. It looks at how the innovations that the weavers of Lyon helped to bring about changed us forever, ushering in early ideas of fashion, and at the same time witnessing and utilising the very first steps towards the digital age.

This podcast explores one of the great textile cities of the world. For hundreds of years, Lyon was a byword for weaving skill and savoir-faire. The silk fabrics exquisitely woven here dressed the royal families of Europe, clothed merchants and muses, priests and politicians, courtesans and courtiers and produced some of the most coveted fabrics of the day.

African Wax Cloth Oct 21, 2021

Show notes

African Wax Cloth is having its moment in the sun and it seems to be everywhere, from the catwalks of Paris and New York to the humblest country fabric shop. To the world's eyes, it is joyful and original, a celebration of West African identity and culture. But what is this fabric, where does it really come from and what does it mean to the different societies and communities that have had a hand in shaping it?

The is episode explores the curious origins of African Wax Cloth, and the twists and turns in an extraordinary story that is behind the creation of the fabric that is one of West Africans most iconic fabrics. But the origins of this cloth lie thousands of miles away from the place that now calls it home. Find out more in this episode.

You can see pictures of the textiles we talk about in this episode, a full script and a list of further resources on the Haptic and Hue Website at https://hapticandhue.com/tales-of-textiles-series-3/

Whole Cloth From The hills Oct 07, 2021

Show notes

Textiles can tell us different stories – not just those of the rich and powerful – they have the power to take us beyond that and tell us tales of working people, families living difficult lives in tough times, those whom history and the written records tend to overlook. This episode is about whole cloth quilting. It explores how this technique and process eventually settled in one area of England and became an emblem of pride and local identity for people who had hardscrabble lives.

North Country whole cloth quilts are very different from patchwork quilts. Their showmanship lies in the swirling design of the quilting stitches on a completely plain background. Quilting is a process that goes back centuries, used by rich and poor alike to keep warm, as a rudimentary armour in battle, and to dress babies. Find out how this technique became identified with an area of England that stretches from North Yorkshire up onto the Scottish Borders and developed an elaborate artistry all of its own – one that even today is little known and appreciated.

You can see pictures of the textiles we talk about in this episode, a full script, and a list of further resources on the Haptic and Hue Website at https://hapticandhue.com/tales-of-textiles-series-3/

Paisley - The Pattern Nomad Sep 23, 2021

Show notes

Can something belong to us all – just by virtue of the fact that we are human beings? If anything has a claim to that – it is the Paisley motif, which has woven its way in and out of human history like no other pattern. This episode traces the history and some of the many appearances attached to this lovely shape, from its incarnation as a tree of life in Ancient Babylon to an emblem of America's Wild West or the Swinging Sixties in London.

Paisley has many names and even more meanings. It is the sleeping dragon of patterns – retiring under the hill for decades of slumber before being re-purposed by new cultures and new generations to signify something different. It belongs to many hands and no one, in particular, can lay claim to it, making it one of the truly global patterns. Listen to some of the journey of this nomad in this episode of Haptic and Hue's Tales of Textiles.

You can see pictures of the textiles we talk about in this episode, a full script and a list of further resources on the Haptic and Hue Website at https://hapticandhue.com/tales-of-textiles-series-3/

A United Nations of Cloth Sep 09, 2021

Show notes

In the West of England lies an old house that is a quiet treasure chest of textiles. The man who has built up this astonishing United Nations of cloth is using them to change the way all of us value and understand textiles.

Over many years Karun Thakar has created a collection of handmade textiles from Africa, Asia, and Europe. Some of these fabrics would have been the height of fashion in their day, destined for trade, but others are humble domestic miracles telling tales of hardship and struggle, often outlining the difficult lives of the women who made and repaired them.

Karun Thakar believes that every fabric in his collection has a story to tell us about the eye for design and colour of the people who made them and the way they lived their lives. His brilliant appreciation of textiles means that he was collecting Kantha cloth, Japanese boro garments, Ottoman and French embroidery, English smocks, Tibetan aprons, Indian phulkari and more before most of us knew what they were. Now he lends and donates his pieces to museums around the world hoping the deepen the understanding of what they mean and the cultures they belong to.

Listen to him talk about why he collects and what he's trying to achieve in this week's episode, the United Nations of Cloth, of Haptic & Hue's Tales of Textiles.

I provide a full transcript, pictures, and links to the work of the contributors to these podcasts, as well as a list of books and articles that have inspired me in making each episode on my website at: www.hapticandhue.com/listen. You can also find the Haptic and Hue bookshop at https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/hapticandhue .

If you would like to sign up for your own link to the podcasts as they are released, for extra information and a chance to access the free textile gifts I offer with each episode then please fill out the very brief form at the bottom of the Haptic and Hue Listen page above. You can follow Haptic and Hue on Instagram @hapticandhue on Facebook or Linked In under the Haptic and Hue name.

The Chatter of Cloth - Introduction Sep 02, 2021

Show notes

Welcome to the third season of Haptic and Hue's Tales of Textiles. This series is called The Chatter of Cloth and each of the eight episodes starts with a piece of fabric and tracks its tale. This introduction sets the context for the season and provides a guide to what is in store. Textiles have been called a detective story that you can hold. Here are eight small detective stories for those of us who can hear what textiles have to tell us about great events, extraordinary kingdoms and empires of the past, or just about a village or our own families.

I provide a full transcript, pictures and links to the work of the contributors to these podcasts, as well as a list of books and articles that have inspired me in making each episode on my website at: www.hapticandhue.com/listen. You can also find the Haptic and Hue bookshop at https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/hapticandhue.

You can follow Haptic and Hue on Instagram @hapticandhue on Facebook or Linked In under the Haptic and Hue name. You can find the Vocal piece on Haberdasheries and why they are important at https://vocal.media/wander/look-up-for-ghosts

A Feeling of Nostalgia Jul 01, 2021

Show notes

There is one kind of fabric that produces a powerful sense of nostalgia in many of us, and that's the very democratic cloth that covers the seats and benches of public transport systems around the world.

Whether you live in London or Los Angeles, Berlin or Bombay, our buses, metros, and trams use a patterned, wool, fabric called moquette. It comes in thousands of different patterns and weaves, and the sight and touch of each one enables us to reach into our memories and be transported back to a first love, a journey to school, or to friends we have lost touch with. A moquette specialist says every one of us has a moquette that we want to hug. Find out what yours might be and why it matters in this episode of Haptic and Hue's, Tales of Textiles.

If you go to Haptic and Hue's website at www.hapticandhue.com/listen, you will find a full transcript of this podcast, pictures of some of the moquettes referred to in this episode, and a list of further resources. You can also sign up there to get these podcasts directly in your inbox, and to have a chance to win some of the textile-related gifts I give away with each episode.

A Feeling of Belonging Jun 17, 2021

Show notes

Cloth is more than something useful or beautiful, it can also have enormous power. We are surrounded by fabrics of meaning and belonging, fabrics that tell us who people are and where they come from if they share a nation, a clan, a school or a religion with us.

This episode explores the ultimate textile with a message – a flag. One commentator calls flags a kind of window onto history that can link people across time and anchor them to their communities. In this podcast, we look at one particular type of flag, the joyful Asafo flags from Ghana's coastal region. These are works of art with a particular history that tell the stories and reflect the culture of the Fante people in a special way. We talk to an Asafo flag maker about his craft, to a collector of these flags, and to someone who is helping to breathe new life into the creation of Asafo flags.

If you go to Haptic and Hue's website at www.hapticandhue.com/listen, you will find a full transcript of this podcast, and pictures of some of the glorious ASAFO flags – both modern and historic. You can also sign up there to get these podcasts directly in your inbox, and to have a chance to win some of the textile-related gifts I give away with each episode.

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