tribaltextiles.info

hallo. I live in the Netherlands and for about 20 years have been collecting embroiderd ethnic hats from all over the world. Unfortunately I rarely find books of the subject, nor other people that collect the same. can you help?thank you, nurit.

originally posted 27 Apr 03

Hi Nurit, I cannot think of an informative book focusing solely on embroidered hats. In so many tribal cultures the head covering is an integral part of the overall costume and so the books tend to include the hats as part of the overall costume. Many of the books listed in the bibliographies on the tribaltextiles.info site have quite a lot of hats - embroidered if that is the style of the tribe. I have a few hats/headcoverings myself and must admit to somewhat of a fascination with them. I was in the Turkmen gallery in London a couple of years ago - they had a fine collection amongst many other scrumptious textiles. A woman came in and was enquiring about (some quite expensive) ones. She said that she had a large collection of hats. There is obviously something about them that does attract. I know that there is a new book due to come out possibly later this year on head coverings written by Georgia Scott, Art Director, The Arts page of The New York Times. She has just taken a year off work to travel to research it (she said that people think she is mad!). I don't know what the book will be like. I did not get the impression that she had expert knowledge - rather a keen interest. None of this is very helpful - except to say that others do share your weakness to a greater or lesser extent! I know it is a rude question to ask a collector, but do you have a large collection? (The worst question is 'and what are you going to DO with ..... whatever textile one collects!' Keep up the good work! Pamela

hi pamela, thank you for your quick respond. Yes I have quite a large collection, most of it is spred all around my house, on walls, shelves etc.After my 120 I hope the kids will be able to give it to a museum as some are really unique.Have you got any idea where can I order some of the bookes that are listed on your list? i am collecting the hats but used to give ethnic embroidery lessons for years and am rather interested in the costumes too. Thaks again, all the best, Nurit

Nurit, I hope I can help. A local friend has written a book about Mien embroidery, which is quite detailed; published by White Lotus, Bangkok. If you like I can contact her for you or give her your email address (I don't have hers, I'm afraid). Her name is Anne Goldman. My twin sister's hobby is sewing; she made wedding shirts for her younger daughter's wedding, and has catalogs and patterns from an American company specializing in the folkloric, with costume patterns from everywhere. I'll try and get that reference to you as well. Best wishes,

Hi sandra, thank you! that will be great if you could pass my e-mail address to your friend who wrote the book, and i would love to see some of the books your sister gets. best wishes, Nurit.

Nurit, I happen to have 2 copies of the Lao Mien Embroidery - Migration and Change by Ann Yarwood Goldman. (there are lots of embroidery stitches in it also a few hats worn by the children and lots of embroidered turbans. It is shown on the bibliography for Thailand page on the site (amongst lots of other books). http://www.tribaltextiles.info/bibliogr ... ks.htm#yao
I can let you have it for the out of pocket cost of posting. I will email you about it. Also have a look at the links page on the tribaltextiles.info site as there is a section on booksellers http://www.tribaltextiles.info/links.html#books with very much a focus on ones with websites. White Lotus press (Bangkok) publishes several of the books in the biblographies. The email address of the person to contact there is Mr Diethard Ande ande@loxinfo.co.th He does not take credit cards (at least not directly) but I found that I could give him a sterling cheque as he had a sterling bank account. He might have a guilder account for dealing with booksellers in the Netherlands. Amazon can often surprise you and it is worth checking their site. Han Shan Tang (in London) have a large website and specialise in Asian books by mail order. Search under textiles and several interesting books will emerge. Select Books in Singapore also send mail order and I have bought in store and by web. All the best, Pamela

You might be interested in a new photogallery which I have just launched of a collection of Hani-Akha textiles from Yunnan collected earlier this year by Rusty & Crista Hippchen. http://www.tribaltextiles.info/Galleries/Hani-Akha.htm There are two embroidered hats in the collection - probably children's, possibly girl's hats. All the textiles have embroidery, mostly fine cross-stitches. Pamela

thanks again. your are right, they are Akha's hats from Thailand, I bought very similars ones when i visited Thailand last year. the one on the left is a woman's one. the othe one a child's one. I have few lovely hats from thailand among all the rest, some lovely ones from Yemen, Turkemanistan, afganistan, india and china. If you like i can mail you some photos so you can see them. I also have a nice collections of books. Two that might interest you, if you have not got them already,are;the vanishing tribes of Burma by Richard K.Diran isbn 1-84188-032-9the other one is; The Shining Cloth by Victoria Z.Rivers isbn 0-500-01951-7 by the way if you happened to come to the Netherlands you are always welcome to come and visit us. Best wishes, Nurit.

Nurit, You are not forgotten! I'm waiting to see my sister - she works 3:00 - midnight 4 days a week; check out www.denverfabrics.com/pages/static/costume-patterns.htm folkwear pattern line! Best wishes, Sandi

A number of years ago I set up a small exhibition cabinet on the subject of ethnic headgear and one of the references I found very useful was a publication called "the power of head dress" the Horniman Museum, London has a copy. It has many photos of headgear in a museum context, as well as some field photographs. I was able to trace a "helmet like" headpeice with dangling side ornaments to northern Sudan using this source. Some time ago I bought a copy of "Chuvash folk art" (published in Russia and possibly hard to get) which is about the Chuvash ethnic group in thr Volga region of Russia, and this shows many interesting examples of dramatic "helmet like" headdresses covered with beads and coins and worn by women. According to some sources there is a folkloric tradition that attributes such head pieces as that worn by the Chuvash and spread widley across central asia in various forms (the Turkmen for example),to an ancient practice of placing women on the field of battle to make an army look larger from a distance. I would be interested if there is any other refernces to this in the literature.

Turkemans head dresses, I personaly own few too, but as far as I know they are brids Thank you Siriol. Sorry for the late replay I was away on vacation. I manger to orther both books and can not wait to have them in my hands already. I was looking at some of my books for more references about the Turkeman head dresses, I personaly own a couple of them too, but as far as i know they are brides ones. I will keep looking, as it sounds really strange to me. Thanks for your help. nurit

Hi Nurit,I understand that you have managed to order "chuvash folk art"? Please let me know what you think of it since the illus are rare and the headresses of the women interesting, and certainly connected to the same traditions as the turkmen. The refs concerning the possible origin of such head ornaments as helmets (of the old Persian/central asian/russian variety) I initialy found difficult to track down but I came across the ref in my essay on head ornaments completed some years ago. this info may be from "the power of headdress" which I found useful in this project but since it was a long time ago I can't be entirely sure. The extract is as follows: "The helmet like aspect of these head peices is common in central Asian womens headdresses. This may have originated in the fact that the head piece and cap combined could appear as a helmet from a distance, a useful tactic to horsemen who frequently used women dressed as warriors to create an illusion to their enemies. According to Lobacheva 1989, centuries ago when marital raids were considered feats of valour among islamic peoples, the girls headddresses were deliberately made in the shape of helmets. this could account of the helmet like element preserved in womens head ornaments among the turkic speaking peoples of the steppes from which the turkic speaking Chuvash are believed to have originated. These patterns also spread to india and africa possibly via islamic influence." Good luck with the Chuvash book I hope it arrives soon. there should be a seperate summary in English loose at the front but if it is missing and you require it I will be happy to post the main points on the forum for you, but the illus both vivid and amazing are what realy matter in this volume

Nurit, In my first response to your original post I mentioned a new book being written by Georgia Scott, Art Director, The Arts page of The New York Times on 'Head Wraps'. Georgia has been in touch recently checking on references for some photos to be included. She has emailed me a pdf file of the sales brochure for the book which is due out in October. I am hoping that, with our new file upload facility (specially amended to include pdf files) I can link the brochure into this post: http://www.tribaltextiles.info/files/Sc ... .final.pdf Looks as if it is packed with illustrations!

If you need to download Adobe Acrobat reader (free) to read this pdf file go to http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/alternate.html

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Pamela

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