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| Child's dress,
India 20th century  This dress is made of green tie-dyed silk fabric which has been embellished with buttons and mirror-work embroidery. Mirror work, also known as shisha (glass) work, gained popularity in India during the 17th century when a new process of making glass was developed using sand, lime and soda in a furnace. Today blown glass is silvered and then broken into pieces to be shaped and used in embroidery. There are many sizes and shapes of the mirrors; circles, squares or triangles are often used. Unlike buttons or beads that have holes for attachment to a fabric, mirrors must be held in place with a surrounding stitch. A grid is sewn on the front of the mirror to hold it in place while the embroiderer uses a stitch that pulls the anchor stitches away from the center, creating a border that holds the mirror in place. Recently, embroiderers have begun using a ring covered with thread, placed on top of a mirror and then stitched into place. The Textile Museum 2001.5.1 Each month we will highlight a different textile from the Museum's collection. |
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