The fabric of empire…. exploring world history through textiles.

The Guardian has published a great review of a historic textiles exhibition currently on show at thet MET in New York City.

“Interwoven Globe: The Worldwide Textile Trade, 1500-1800 at theMetropolitan Museum of Art in New York claims to be the first major exhibition to explore the transmission of taste across the known world through the medium of fabric. There are 160 textiles and garments on display, from tapestries and bedcovers to vestments, shawls and chintz dresses – most rarely exhibited, many never seen before – occupying nine big galleries. It is a blockbuster of a show proclaiming the role and significance of cotton, silk, wool and linen, dyeing, printing, weaving and embroidering in the history of our world”. 

You can also see some high-quality, digitized selections of textiles that form part of the exhibition on the MET’s website.