Textile Research Centre, Leiden
| Established | 1991 |
|---|---|
| Location | Hogewoerd 164, Leiden |
| Director | G.M. Vogelsang-Eastwood (2010) |
| Website | www |
The Stichting (Foundation) Textile Research Centre (TRC), Leiden, Netherlands, is an independent research institute working in the field of textiles and dress. It is housed at Hogewoerd 164 in Leiden and includes exhibition space, storage rooms, a lecture room and other working areas. The current director of the TRC (per November 2010) is Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood, a textile and dress historian.
The TRC has the stated aim of encouraging research into and textiles and clothing in the widest sense of the word. In particular, the TRC specialises in Dress: namely, what people do to their body (body modification) and what they wear (body supplements) in order to express their identity. The basic theory of dress is outlined in an article by Eicher and Roach-Higgins (1992).
The TRC was founded in 1991 as a Stichting (foundation; organisation). Since then it has been involved in many aspects of the academic study of and dress, especially those from the Near East.
In 1997 the TRC started building up a textile and dress collection. By late 2010 the collection had grown to over 6,500 textiles, garments and accessories from all over the world. Most of the garments come from the Near East and Islamic lands: notably, Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran, Oman and Saudi Arabia. It also has a large collection of Dutch regional dress. Many of the garments were obtained during fieldwork by TRC staff and students, whilst others were purchased or given as donations.
Until August 2009 the TRC was housed in the National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden, but since then it has moved to new premises in the centre of Leiden. It now organises a series of exhibitions, lectures, workshops and training courses for students and others who are interested. Recent exhibitions included: Embroidery from the Arab World (2009–2010) and Well-Dressed Afghanistan (opening November 2010).
Middle Eastern dress remains a focal point of the TRC. The veils in the TRC collection, for instance, were used for a major exhibition at the National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden (1996), and for various publications, including Covering the Moon: An Introduction to Middle Eastern Face Veils (2008) (Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood and Willem Vogelsang; Leuven: Peeters, 2008).[1].
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