#turkish-cotton

#turkish-cotton

Washi, because of its quality and texture, offers something not just tactile but psychologically soothing. It's about one-third the weight of cotton, light, breathable and dry to the touch.

Ian Berry's Secret Garden, constructed entirely from recycled denim, showcases the innovative use of materials in textile art, emphasizing sustainability and creativity.

"We met with linen and wool weavers and were blown away by the exceptional quality and beauty of the cloth they produced, as well as the depth of [textile] history in Ireland. We were in equal measure concerned by the decline in the number of weavers. They mentioned that they were losing out to cheaper cloth from abroad and that Irish buyers were few and far between."

"They're everyday professionals who simply don't have the time to shop the traditional way," said Kneen about J. Hilburn customers. Instead, stylists manage fit, fabrics and wardrobe planning, effectively outsourcing the entire process for busy professionals.

Textiles are a window into the communities that created them, with every motif and line signalling a different memory, tradition or identity. Often seen as folk art, these pieces of embroidery and weaving bring together dozens of narrative threads, from Japan to South America. But nowhere is it more fraught with meaning than in Palestine.

My mother always told me that the best cotton sheets are an investment I would not regret. She is right—the unfussy fabric is anything but one note.

But this week I spotted an ingenious use for the extras, courtesy of NY-based company Proche Studio. Here's their proposal: Mail in a wool blanket, and they'll give it new life in the form of a great-looking-and uber snug-chore coat, vest, or scarf. I'm particularly smitten by the chore coat, a fresh version of the quilt coats that became popular a couple of years ago, and much, much warmer.

Fashion and dress in Mesopotamia - clothing, footwear, and accessories - were not only functional but defined one's social status and developed from a simple loincloth in the Ubaid period (circa 6500-4000 BCE) to brightly colored robes and dresses by the time of the Sassanian Empire (224-651). Styles changed, but the essential form and function remained the same. As in any civilization, the upper class and nobility wore more expensive clothes of higher quality.

A new law empowering Turkey's central government to seize historic properties from local authorities is raising fears that heritage sites are becoming the latest front in a wider campaign against opposition-led municipalities. Among the sites at stake are cultural venues run by the Istanbul municipality, whose mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu launched an ambitious conservation drive and expanded cultural programming before he was jailed last year after announcing plans to run for president.

An intact mosaic from Late Antiquity discovered during restoration of a historic municipal building in Istanbul is now a floor again, covered in plexiglass and welcoming visitors to the new Zeytinburnu Mosaic Museum. Visitors of Turkey's newest museum move across elevated glass walkways, suspended right above the original floors themselves. The mosaics are not relocated fragments mounted on walls, but surfaces that remain exactly where they were first laid, preserving their context for all to see.

In the show, "dirty" extends to anything that breaks fashion's pact with propriety. Here are clothes caked in grime, blotted with makeup, stiffened by salt, pieced from trash, frayed, and faded. The garments span decades, from the 1980s through the mid-2000s, when the likes of Vivienne Westwood and Jean Paul Gaultier built their fame on defying convention, to today, when corporatization has made such daring increasingly rare. But forgoing practicality frees certain designers from the demands that the body be polite-and thereby policed.

That past is his - it is the 20th anniversary of his label, and accordingly he decided to embrace, engage, even embed himself in his own history. Which, in and of itself, is a history of histories - Moralıoğlu's office is peppered with random 1930s portraits (the ones his husband, the architect Philip Joseph, won't let him keep in their Bloomsbury home) and old, time-warped issues of Vogue, as well as overflows of books on everything from Merce Cunningham to Alfred Hitchcock.

The bag is crafted from genuine translucent leather in a pale, almost golden yellow that does a convincing job of mimicking the cooked skin of a steamed dumpling. The leather is soft and smooth to the touch, and because it's translucent, you can see straight through to the canvas lining inside. That lining is printed with images of chopped vegetables and filling, creating a visual illusion that's almost unsettling in the best possible way.

In this freezing season, we're thinking warm thoughts. Hot chocolate, '90s rom-coms, purring kittens, and the best luxury throw blankets. "Feels like -6 degrees" day after day has us dreaming up cozy blankets speciated for sophisticated lounging. We're talking thick wool that's not scratchy, cashmere not prone to pilling, oversized throws as soft as your favorite sweater. High-quality textiles are of the highest import, and we'll even pay the dry cleaning fee for this level of comfort.