Textiles
A Glimpse Inside a Florentine Silk-Weaving Workshop
In a quiet corner of the bohemian district of San Frediano, hidden behind an 18th-century iron gate that opens onto a whimsical wisteria-covered alleyway, lies a Florentine cultural treasure: the Antico Setificio Fiorentino, or Antique Florentine Silk Mill, which has been producing precious textiles since 1786. To enter through the atelier’s large, worn timber door […]
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Glimpses of Northern India’s Vanishing Nomads
Fitting a small stone into a sling made of yak wool, Tsering Stobdan whipped his wrist and let the object fly, sending it soaring across the arid landscape. This, he told me, was how he protects his flock from predators and convinces straggling goats to return — just one of the countless skills he has […]
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The Wandering Creativity of Sophie Taeuber-Arp
There’s an object in the Museum of Modern Art’s retrospective of the Swiss polymath Sophie Taeuber-Arp that’s so covetable I wanted to squeeze it. It dates from 1922, and takes the form of triangles that lock together into an allover pattern of blue and pink, brown and olive. Interrupting these abstract forms are five red […]
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