As part of my plan to slow down my sewing in 2020, I promised more blog posts this year which weren’t actually finished makes.

So here goes! Are you ready to hear about why sewing rules the world???

Today, I’m reviewing the totally, utterly, fabulously inspiring book: ‘The Golden Thread: How Fabric Changed History‘ by Kassia St Clair.

Go out and buy yourself a copy. Or borrow it at the library!!

(I couldn’t decide whether to include a link in this blog post because, well, as far as I’m aware pretty much every online bookseller is jointly responsible for undercutting that most fabulous and wonderful institution – the local brick and mortar book store. Was there ever a better place to take shelter on a rainy day? So, if you’re interested in getting your hands on your own copy of the the book, google it and pick the seller which is most appropriate to you and your needs. Or visit your local bookstore!! And if anyone has any ideas of responsible book sellers to link to for a post of this nature, please feel free to comment and let me know!).

Fabric is life

Confession: In my every day life, and in particular, my professional life, I can be reticent to talk about my sewing habit. I feel as though if people perceive me as being obsessed with clothing and blogging about ‘fashion’, I’ll be taken less seriously as a lawyer. A colleague recently asked me if I would talk about my sewing at a lunchtime event at work aimed at celebrating ways of achieving work-life balance and I declined because I was worried about becoming ‘known’ as the blonde obsessed with clothes.

Now, of course, I’m not denying that there is a chance that some of this is in my head.

But, I don’t think that it’s all in my head.

Well, reading The Golden Thread completely made me want to leave those fears behind and scream to everyone I meet: “Hey, I’m a mother fuckin’ sewist and the history of textiles is actually the history of the world!!!!!!”

“And if you’ve got a problem with that go sit on a pin cushion!!!!!!!”

In other, less-expletive filled, words, it was empowering to read, in such an easy and entertaining fashion, about the cultural and societal importance of those things we sewists hold so dear – garments and fabric. For the first time, I felt that if anyone looked down at me with snobbish eyes upon hearing of my sewing obsession, I was actually equipped with sufficient information to serve up a smart-arsed response about how every aspect of life as they know it is actually influenced by fabric.

In the words of The Golden Thread: “Fabric and its component parts have long been a figurative stand-in for the very stuff of human life” (The Golden Thread, p. 1).

I’d never really stopped to think of fabric as technology and what its existence in all kinds of contexts can tell us about the development and sophistication of those who have created it. Seriously, did you know that the same technology is at the heart of the creation of both jacquard and the earliest forms of computers (p. 8). What the?????

I’ve learned so much from The Golden Thread. About fabric being at the heart of the development of global commodity trade in the Middle Ages and even earlier – the original globalisation, if you will. About trading in the next year’s expected wool ‘harvest’ as an early form of futures trading. Of the need for better, faster and more cotton production as a driving force behind the industrial revolution.

Fabric has long shaped history. The fact that it disappears more easily from the archaeological record and that it is closely (although in no way exclusively) connected to women are some of the reasons that we just don’t hear about it that much!

In other words, perhaps it’s not ‘just fabric’ after all!

The Golden Thread: How Fabric Changed History

You may also recall that a while ago, I wrote a blog post about Feminism and Sewing, sharing some fears about how, while sewing is a feminist act for me, I worry about the fact that it’s not the same for everyone. Plenty of great comments on that post and the related instagram post pointed out to me the extremely rich history of textiles and garments as providing a route of empowerment for women and I really enjoyed learning more about that in The Golden Thread.

I’d never before really opened my mind to textiles as creating a feminist lens through which to view history. And now that my eyes have been opened – it can’t be unseen.

For example, according to The Golden Thread, it was women at the Playtex factory who ultimately turned 4000 pieces of fabric into the Omega Spacesuits in which man first walked on the moon (pp. 234-5). (Talk about high stakes sewing!! Some early space explorers nearly died due to malfunctions in their space suits, so I’ll never complain about the ‘pressure’ of cutting into a precious fabric to make a garment again!!)

There is so much in The Golden Thread that could appeal to sewists. From insight into how the fibres we love so much have been created throughout the ages, to their historical context, to very modern commentaries about fast fashion.

The book has a strong focus on the 4 steadfast sources of natural fibres: silk, wool, cotton and linen. However, it also looks at more modern types and sources of fabric in its latter chapters.

The Golden Thread has chapters dealing with the role of textiles in a range of diverse contexts: from cave dwellers 30,000 years ago, to silk in ancient China, to viking sail boats, to wool and wealth in medieval England to textiles fit to conquer Mt Everest and space suits for walking on the moon! Each chapter provides a historical context and then focuses on a few archaeological discoveries or specific stories to highlight the importance of textiles and its use in shaping culture, events and society itself.

The zipping through time has a fascinating effect, as all kinds of parallels become apparent. The parallels to Rana Plaza and modern fast fashion are obvious when reading about the medieval lacemakers in France and Belgium whose product created massive wealth for the kingdom, yet suffered from their low status and growing inequality (pp. 154-155).

Textiles as power

Another aspect of The Golden Thread that I found fascinating was the notion of textiles and fabric as symbols of power, status and capabilities. Your status could influence which fabrics, even which colours, you were allowed to wear. The quantity of ruffles with which you were permitted to be adorned. The intricacy of the lace with which you could decorate yourself. As Kassia St Clair puts it eloquently: ‘Clothing was, in other words, another landscape over which the dynamics of power were played out’ (p. 163).

Again, these ideas resonate strongly with modern understandings of luxury fashion and haute couture.

And the ultimate power, of course, is that which might stretch even beyond our current plane of existence.

Learning that ‘linen was what made mummies sacred’ (p. 39), certainly gave an interesting perspective on my own linen obsession.

It may sound silly, but I feel as though I can understand the reverence with which linen was regarded in ancient Egypt. Fine linen has a beauty which never ceases to speak to me. The Golden Thread made me see I was actually in quite revered company in this obsession!

In fact, “Wrapping and unwrapping Egyptian Mummies” was my favourite chapter of The Golden Thread not only because of the veneration of linen, which speaks to every fibre of my being, but also because as a little girl, I desperately wanted to be an Egyptologist when I grew up (well, either that or a librarian). Also BTW, if you have a penchant for all things historical, I can’t recommend the Dressed Podcast all about the history of fashion highly enough, they also have a great episode with an Egyptologist about ancient Egyptian fashion.

Plus, it doesn’t hurt that the insight into funerary rights in ancient Egypt also offered me some of the best justification for my fabric buying habit that I’ve ever read. In ancient Engyptian society ‘Textiles were valuable, representing a significant part of a person’s wealth’ (p. 47).

Well, well, well, that is indeed a sentiment which speaks to me. Or to my stash, at least.

I’ll have to see if my significant other will buy this line: “ummm, no, contrary to appearances that is not an increasing number of boxes stuffed with fabric, that is an accumulation of our wealth. And it’s sacred to boot!!”.

Sewing and story-telling

The preface describes The Golden Thread as ‘a book written for the curious’ (p. xii) and that is precisely what it is. And I have no doubt that plenty of other curious sewists out there would get a lot out of this journey deep into the heart of fabric.

In addition, as a sewing blogger, I couldn’t help but smile at the observation that ‘making cloth was particularly conducive to story telling’ (p. 11). The Golden Thread highlights how slow, repetitive tasks like spinning and weaving lent themselves to the exchange of stories and experiences.

Sewing and story-telling is a central theme of The Golden Thread, as well as a fitting meta-narrative for what the book itself is doing.

Sewing and stories.

I feel like this describes quite well the relationship I have to my sewing practice – both garments and my blog are a way for me to tell stories. The Golden Thread helped me see that this is actually a tradition which has continued for millennia.

Just think about humanity’s long obsession with both fabric and story telling next time someone talks about the death of sewing blogs. Women in particular have been sharing their stories and experiences through the creation of garments and textiles for millennia!

The rise of instagram sure as hell ain’t enough to change that!!

You know, until reading The Golden Thread, I’d never actually noticed the close connection between the words ‘text’ and ‘textile’, with both coming from the latin for ‘to weave’ (p. 17). What a light bulb moment to see that these two things I love have a singular origin!!

The Golden Thread serves as a beautiful reminder of how every thread can tell a story and I highly recommend it to all curious sewists out there.

Or to anyone who feels a desire to be connected to a better understanding of just how special textiles can be.

So, what about you? Read any good sewing/textile/fabric related books recently????

Oh and, finally, a little P.S! If you like to get your blog hits through Bloglovin’, feel free to follow me over there: you can find me here. And you can find me on Instagram here.