Chinese textiles go back thousands of years. The Silk Road was named for the extensive trade in these fine materials. Due to China's size and history of successive wealthy dynasties, a vast amount of textile art is available for study today. Great tombs have yielded beautiful and dateable pieces worn and used by elite members of Chinese society. These and other fragile examples reside in museums and a few private collections. Other examples of antique Chinese textiles are found still to be in the marketplace. While it is impossible to look at these beautiful examples and not admire the skill of the weaver and embroiderer, until now there has been little information about their history or value. This comprehensive guide to collectible Chinese textiles with an extensive number of examples and with an understandable grading system that relates to what constitutes value. This book is beautifully illustrated with over 500 detailed photos of ceremonial court robes, badges, and decorative textiles dating from the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) through the Ching dynasty, (1644-1911). It is designed for historians, Asian studies sholars, and textile collectors, from beginning to advanced, as a real-world representation of available pieces and an indepth study. It is a must for appraisers and connoisseurs alike.

This new book provides an organized, chronological guide to the evolution and development of the myriad types of soft headgear worn by the SS. As the pre- and war-years progressed, geographical areas of operation changed, and the composition of the SS divisions evolved. So also, did the headgear worn by these troops. This reference illustrates a great number of these examples with over 600 photos including more than half in color. The overwhelming majority of these pictures including many rare original candid period snapshots have never been seen before in any previous publication.

The motifs and design elements of lighting, furnishings, and everyday household implements have long served as teachers, offering clues and insight into the lives of the people who created and owned them. Here is a comprehensive tour of figured coverlets made between 1817 and 1869. These antique woven bedcovers, with their graphic and colorful images of trains, animals, buildings, heroes and patriotic symbols, provide a wonderful and perhaps unique snapshot of the bright optimism that was the 19th-century spirit of America. Over 100 coverlets are shown in full, in color, and on both sides. They include many early and rare pieces, offering an unprecedented reference on the subject. Nearly all are dated and/or identified, and represent all the major coverlet producing states.

Art takes many forms. In this selection of Asian court attire, dating from the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), the phrase "you are what you wear" resonates. Vollmer journeys back to the thirteenth-century Chinese Empire, where ancestors of the ruling Manchu conquerors dressed fittingly. These exquisite costumes remind us that royalty once set fashion standards the way that celebrities do today, but that these garments also promoted distinct national and political messages that helped keep a ruling minority in power for nearly three centuries. Dressed to Rule is a guide to the exhibit, of the same name, that appeared at the University of Alberta in 2007.

Presents a selection of more than 100 furnishing textiles and designs that range from a spectacular printed hanging designed by the Wiener Werkstatte artist, Dagobert Peche, between 1911 and 1918, to a series of dramatic woven, silk and metal wall coverings Les Colombes designed by Henri Stephany for the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes. The Art Deco period is well represented by the works of Raoul Dufy, Alberto Lorenzi, Robert Bonfils, Alfred Latour, Emile Alain Seguy and Paul Dumas. Although the majority of pre-Second World War textiles are of French origin, the exhibition also includes some rare British furnishing fabrics from the 1930s, in particular the iconic and very elegant Magnolia Leaf by Marion Dorn, woven in off-white and silver viscut by Warner & Sons in 1936. During this period, Britain attracted talented European designers, such as Jacqueline Groag and Marian Mahler who had trained with Josef Hoffmann at the Vienna Kunstgewerbeschule. They became highly influential in creating a 'New Look' that took hold of Britain after the austerities of the Second World War. 'The Festival of Britain,' held in 1951, was epitomised by Calyx which launched the career of its designer, Lucienne Day and is now considered to be a landmark of post-War design. So great was its success that several versions were produced as well as contemporary copies, all of which are reproduced here in spectacular colour. Two great textiles from the 1950s - Seaweed designed by Ashley Havinden in 1954 for Arthur Sanderson and Grecian by Alec Hunter in 1956 for Warner & Sons - bridge the gap between the spirit and elegance of the inter-War period and the new 'contemporary' look of the 1950s. Britain maintained its pre-eminent position in textile design throughout the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s. This was because firms like Edinburgh Weavers, Heal & Sons and Hull Traders and museums such as the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester (the centre of the British textile industry) worked hard at integrating and promoting great design, often by well-known artists within the industry. Among the artists who worked with Edinburgh Weavers were Marino Marini, Victor Vasarely and Alan Reynolds. Britain was not alone in applying art to industry. An elegant example of Op Art is the work of the German artist, Wolf Bauer, whose 1969/70 designs for one of the leading American manufacturers, Knoll Textiles, is a highlight of this book.

Every Persian carpet has a story to tell -- from the remote villages of Afghanistan and Iran, down the ancient trade routes traveled for centuries, to the bazaars of Tehran and the markets of the Western world. Carpet-making is one of this tumultuous region's few constants, an art form that transcends religious and political turmoil. Part travelogue and part exploration into the meaning and worth of these mystical artifacts, "The Root of Wild Madder" presents practical information about carpets while exploring the artistic, religious, and cultural complexities of these enigmatic lands.

Meticulously embroidered pictures that could be framed and displayed formed a part of a girl's education through the Goergian period in Britain (1714-1830). This book shows the variety of subjects and techniques and also glances at the work produced in American schools. As well as schoolgirls, outstanding women like Miss Morritt, Mrs Knowles and Miss Linwood produced large embroidered pictures to simulate paintings, greatly admired at the time, but now totally neglected. Pictorial needlework also adored upholstery, chair seats, screens and wallhangings. This book will be a useful handbook for collectors, museum curators and antique dealers, and an inspiration to the modern needlewoman.

The international literary icon opens his eclectic closet and shares photos of his extensive unique personal T-shirt collection, accompanied by essays that reveal a side of the writer rarely seen by the public. Haruki Murakami's books have galvanized millions around the world. Many of his fans know about his 10,000-vinyl-record collection, and his obsession with running, but few have heard about a more intimate, and perhaps more unique, passion: his T-shirt-collecting habit. In Murakami T, the famously reclusive novelist shows us his T-shirts - including gems found in bookshops, charity shops and record stores - from those featuring whisky, animals, cars and superheroes, to souvenirs of marathons and a Beach Boys concert in Honolulu, to the shirt that inspired the beloved short story 'Tony Takitani'. Accompanied by short, frank essays that have been translated into English for the first time, these photographs reveal much about Murakami's multifaceted and wonderfully eccentric persona. 'The world's most popular cult novelist' Guardian

Housed in the former sixteenth-century convent of Santo Domingo Church, now the Regional Museum of Oaxaco, Mexico, is an important collection of textiles representing the area's indigenous cultures. The collection includes a wealth of exquisitely made traditional weavings, many now considered rare. This book details a joint project of the Getty Conservation Institute and the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) of Mexico to conserve the collection. The book contains 145 color photographs as well as a wealth of information on weaving, cultural contexts, and conservation issues.