Tag: travel

  • Kiribati armour

    Kiribati armour

    The Republic of Kiribati is not on many travel itineraries but it has a fascinating culture, including the wearing of intricate and somewhat alarming armour! The body armour of Kiribati (pronounced “Kiribas”) is held in museum collections around the world. The outfits consist of a full-body suit of woven coconut fibre accompanied by a neck…

  • Campbell Island’s Shetlanders

    In the early 20th Century an attempt was made to farm sheep on Campbell Island (Moto Ihupuku) in Aotearoa New Zealand. Campbell Island lies in the subantarctic, 400 or so miles south of Te Waipounamu/ the South Island. It is windswept, and mountainous, and is almost bisected by a long fiord called Perseverance Harbour that…

  • Reader submissions

    The first indigenous woman to ever study at Oxford University will receive a posthumous degree. Mākereti Papakura, a pioneering Māori scholar, matrucalted in 1927 to read Anthropology at the Pitt Rivers Museum and the Society of Home Students. She explored the customs of her iwi (tribal group) from Te Arawa as seen from a female…

  • Sealskins and the General Grant

    On  May 14th, 1866 and American ship, the “General Grant” sank near the Auckland Islands, and an extraordinary tale of survival followed. There were 83 people on board the ship, along with gold, wool, skins and other valuables from New Zealand and Australia, and the vessel headed out from Melbourne on the London route. Ten days…

  • The Enigma and Dress of an Afro-Brazilian Gentlewoman

    Clothing and adornments can tell us lots about the past but sometimes mystery remains. The Brazilian state of Bahia has a strong link to Africa through its history. Enslaved people from the continent where brought over to the Americas during the transatlantic slave trade, and many “Baiana”, women who trace their roots back to Africa,…

  • A scrap of carpet

    I sold my house, Ferncliff, in Shetland a couple of years ago. Ferncliff sits on the hill above the ferry terminal on the island of Yell that offers transport to Unst and Fetlar, the most remote of the North Isles. The house was built in 1824 and many of the original elements are still in…

  • The Spotify playlist

    Each week a curated playlist of audio is made on the streaming platform Spotify. The playlist can be heard on the player above or by searching Spotify online or in the app for “Music to read a blog by”. Each of the entries has something to do with the blog. Sometimes the reference is obvious;…

  • Racoons… in Europe?

    The North American racoon, cute as it may be, is classed as an invasive species. Brought to Europe, in particular Germany, in the 1930s to boost the fur trade, these mammals have now spread across large parts of the continent. They are omnivorous and adaptable, competing with, and preying on, small native animals and birds,…

  • Brocade

    Collection: Philadelphia Museum of Art, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Apparently brocade, that opulent and maximalist fabric, is making a comeback… This article from Architectural Digest explains how the fabric, once the exclusive property of royalty, nobility and the extremely wealthy, is being used in fashion and interiors, and there are new innovations being trialled…

  • Horst in the library

    A new book has been added to the textile library: Horst, Photographer of Style. Horst Paul Albert Bohrmann was born on August 14, 1906 in Weißenfels-an-der-Saale in Germany. He studied design and carpentry, and architecture in Paris where he met he met George Hoyningen-Huene, the preeminent photographer at French Vogue. Huene became Horst’s mentor, inviting…