Isulu ni soqo, salusalu,, three part wedding and formal gown with garland
Unknown manufacturer, Fiji, (gown) Lau Islands, 2019
At Humboldt Forum in Berlin
If your dress is made political
Through out our histories how we dressed is used for politics. Often not done by the wearer. It is something I study in colonial history. How this has so much influence on what we wear, but also how we talk about it. Often through an Eurocentric lens, because of how dress history is documented.
Alma Al Farisi dives into this topic too, with refreshing videos she shares on both the colonial and Indonesian political agendas with/within traditional & national dress, like in her ted talk ‘The clothes that built a Nation’.
During my holiday, 2 to 10 September, I wasn’t thinking this would be a theme, but it really was.
I visited in Berlin the exhibition ‘Heavy Fabric’ {Schwerer Stoff} at the Museum Europäischer Kulturen (MEK). A beautiful double meaning of heavy, in which the multiple layers of skirts wear heavy to wear, but also the wear was political misused. It shows the traditional wear, Tracht, of Danube-Swabian women & girls, and how in the 1930s their “Tracht" was misappropriated for nationalistic purposes. The original wearers were displaced due to the War and suffered under the hands of the rulers who made their traditional wear unwearable.
Drawings by Erna Piffl (1904–1987)
Piffl specialised in depictions of Tracht, traditional Austrian dress. Her involvement in the Nazi movement opened up her career opportunities because she was able to show her watercolours in prominent exhibitions. Her long-term influence was ensured by her work for the Ahnenerbe, an SS “research” organisation looking at “ancestral heritage”. There, her images played a major role in the pseudo-scientific research carried out in occupied territories to substantiate racist assertions, and they brought her to fame. After the end of Nazi rule she illustrated catalogues that determined what would be classed as “authentic Tracht” (for Upper Austria in 1955, for example). Ethnographic exhibitions about Tracht often included her pictures—including those produced for the SS Ahnenerbe. Her graphics continued to convey ideas and a visual language that had been shaped by Nazism.
Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! The portrayed women were unaware of Piffl intentions and how they were misused as Nazi propaganda.
The museum MEK is basically an ethnographic museum, but on European traditions & culture, which is really refreshing! It show cases dress, decorations & crafts from different countries. Asks questions like ‘Is There such a Thing as a European Identity?’.
After the MEK, I went to the other Ethnographic museum at Humboldt Forum. Since 2020 it housed the collections of the Ethnological Museum of Berlin and the Museum of Asian Art. I was not well prepared for this massive space. I started on the 'Asia' floor on which a selection of their 37.500 objects is shown. Where on the other floor much is debated on repatriate of objects, origin, provenance and people, here was complete silence (I felt).
Partial cast of the eastern gate of the Sanchi stupa, before 1886.
shown inside and outside!
Vallabhacharya temple cloth for the Sharad Purnima festival (autumn full moon),
Western India, Rajasthan. 19th c.
Painting on cloth
Sari from India, Madhya Pradesh, Chanderi, 19th c.,
woven silk stitched with gold-coloured metal thread
Kapa from Hawai'i
Going through room after room with just the most beautiful, powerful, skill full objects of which humanity was stripped away from. On the other floor with objects from the African continent, Oceania and South America more is shared on colonial history and how a big part of building ethnographic collections was to make a point, a really ugly point. They collected only things that could showcase that people from the countries being colonized were less. If it didn’t fit the colonial narrative, it was either not collected, or not shown within the museum. The process of not only trying to convince people in Europe that other people were less or even deserving of colonisation, while not only taking valuable resources, but taking lives, and talking away cultural significant objects along the way, makes looking at this at these collections crazy. Of most objects I could only think, why is this (still) here?
The things that brought back some humanity into this building, were the reimagined Kanga cloth (an traditional textiles used in East Africa produced in both India and Europe) by Charity Atukunda and a wedding dress made from Masi (barkcloth from Fiji, painted with repeated patterns using stencils). Although the dress was acquired in 2019 from the Suva Curio Handicraft Center, the manufacturer is marked as “unknown”.
'Remembrance 2' by Charity Atukunda and Liz Kobusinge from 2024.
Printed cotton kanga
(Text: An elephant never forgets, but those who ignore its memory will be trampled twice)
Isulu ni soqo, salusalu,, three part wedding and formal gown with garland
Unknown manufacturer, Fiji, (gown) Lau Islands, 2019
Main reason for my short holiday was to visit the exhibition 'Batik Girl. The Fabulous Józefa Kogut' (soon more on my blog, more info here in Krakow, but added some extra days to explore the city.
The exhibition is held at the Muzeum Etnograficzne w Krakowie (another MEK), the ethnographic museum of Krakow. In their main building they showcase local tradition and culture.
Seeing all the crafts & clothing I realized, can take the girl to the city, but cannot get the village out me. Like the rural life better, not such much in practice, but in (folk)art for sure!
Seeing all this, made me realize how empty we (Europeans) got. Our daily wear in Europe, our detachments of traditions, not knowing where they come from or how colonial history, but also the Second World War (which are not separate histories also), influenced, changed and removed so much.
The main exhibition starts with this text;
The items collected in the museum, even taken out of context and deprived of personal history, do not cease to bear testimony to someone's life. Individual life, far from simplification and ideal.
Can we perceive our ancestors and talk about them in this way? About our heritage which consists not only of the beautiful and the sublime, but also of failures, unhealed wounds, guilt and shame? What part of this legacy can we acknowledge?
In Krakow I also went to 4 of the places that are under the National Museum, MNK, umbrella. I started in the MNK Szołayscy, the museum on applied arts to see the small exhibition ‘Moda Polska’. The museum text read as follows;
For many people living in the Polish People's Republic, the state-owned enterprise
'Moda Polska' (1958-1998) was synonymous with style and elegance. Seemingly out of place in a communist state, this enterprise producing luxury goods was intended to prove that even a people's democracy could compete with capitalist countries in the field of fashion, even though the high-quality products offered by 'Moda Polska' were unaffordable for the vast majority of the populace.
The exhibition features over a dozen works by leading Polish designers, created from the late 1960s to the 1990s. The clothes made of hand-painted Milanówek silk are particularly worthy of note.
A state-owned fashion house, don’t even know where to begin. But the looks! Reminded me of Fong Leng, our Dutch fashion queen & the handpainted batik from Malaysia.
Evening gown with a depiction of pond with swans
Kalina Paroll (designer), 'Milanowek' Natural Silk Factory, 1977
Hand-painted Milanówek silk chiffon,
Looks like batik right?
Who run the world ~ Silk!
It the blog 'Silk Parachutes, or the Work of Butterflies: From Cocoons to Warplanes in Interwar Poland' on Culture.pl is written the following;
“Initially, the station (Central Experimental Sericulture Station ) in Milanówek primarily conducted scientific research focused on observing silkworm breeding and mulberry trees, as the silk moths feed on the leaves of these trees. Soon, the facility began offering silk-making courses and free counselling, as well as distributing publications, leaflets and posters to promote this activity in Poland.
Rozwijajmy przemysł jedwabniczy! (Let’s Develop the Silk Industry!) was the title of a brochure published in 1927, in which it was calculated that ‘if only one person in every 2,000 in Poland bred and cultivated silkworms, we would no longer need to import silk from abroad’.”
Which brings me to silk. In my world where cotton rules the world, it is a learning experience to get to know the history and importance of silk, abroad in Southeast Asia (like in Luang Prabang in Laos & Bangkok in Thailand), but also closer to home in Krefeld & now Krakow.
On the main square of Krakow is the Cloth hall, Sukiennice. Dating as far back as the 15th century, this building was the place for international trade of local salt, lead and textiles, with spices, leather and silk.
The building and another part of the MNK doesn’t share anything on the history of this building or the impact of silk on Poland. But it left its traces in what was worn. Specifically by noblemen.
Found a great explanation on the sash at the V&A, Sash | Francis Maslowski | V&A Explore The Collections:
The Polish sash was developed as a significant feature of national dress for Polish men during the 17th and 18th centuries. It came to signify a noble class that had no comparable structure anywhere in Europe and was equally regarded as a marker of personal identity.
During the 17th century Persian scarves, woven mainly in the workshops of Kashan, were imported into Poland through the Turkish markets for use as sashes, but the Persian textile trade ended with the Afghan invasion of 1722. (…) Armenian exiles in Constantinople began the production of Stanbul Sashes exclusively for the Polish market and subsequently transferred their operations and specialist equipment to Poland. The first sashes with gold and silver threads were made around 1740 in Słuck under the direction of Armenian weavers.
In 1758 Jan Madzarski, an Armenian from the Radziw ‘Persian’ workshops, became the foreman at Słuck where some of the most beautiful and original designs, combining Persian, Chinese and Turkish motifs, were produced.
Other workshops followed. One of the makers is Francis Maslowski. Masłowski learned the art of weaving in Kobyłka, near Warsaw, and was one of several Polish nationals to set up a workshop in or around Kraków.
The sashes are on display at the MNK Czartoryski Museum and main MNK building. Also spotted a painting with a less traditional or formal way of knotting the sash. At the giftshop they are selling tiny sashes, as bookmarks, had to get one!
'Nobleman with a Parrot' from 1859
by Józef Simmer (1823-1868)
So an unexpected theme running through this trip, which I had to put to (digital) paper right away. I am behind on my blog, with a much demanding very great job I am doing at the moment, I have less time to sit and write here, but as always, I will find the time to share my journey to Batik and what paths it brings me on!
Shout out to the website Culture.pl! This website provided me with great insight during this trip, find posts there on Moda Polska, Silk and the Sash!
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