Threads of Life - A testament in textiles and a mission of remembrance
Former College lecturer, Ruth Caswell, unveiled the Threads of Life
ribbon and led a series of workshops for Fashion students, disclosing
the design and manufacturing process, before involving them in
finishing some of the ribbons ready for sale. The ribbon has been
produced to commemorate and raise funds for the Lord Mayor’s Bradford
Kashmir Earthquake Trust.
Ruth explained: “I was very lucky
to train in fashion during the 1960s which was such an exciting time
when you really could knock something up in your bedroom and sell it on
the King’s Road. I enjoyed success and had designs featured in Vogue
and then taught here for a while. I found it such an inspiring place to
work as I kept finding incredible books, for instance stunning 1920s
fashion industry samples. But the very best thing for me was a cabinet
of books, the Textile Fabrics of India, presented to the College by the
Secretary of state for India in the 1870s. The samples in these volumes
have retained their beauty and luxuriant feel for over 130 years, and
to preserve them we must wear gloves to handle the volumes. The Boteh
paisley design is one that everyone knows and if you look at it closely
you can see that it is based on a seed, a new life foetus, a symbol of
rebirth.
I was deeply moved by the news coverage of the earthquake while
conscious that after the initial focus, media attention and people’s
consciousness moves on to the next disaster, although for the victims
moving on when everything they had has been lost, is not so easy. From
my years of working in fashion and design I was convinced that culture
and design encapsulate what people are really about and I wanted to do
something so that people would remember. Fundraising was an important
but equal consideration. A crucial intention behind the ribbon was to
create a memorial to them in textiles. I wanted the ribbon to have a
little fringe so that each one was like a mini Kashmir shawl. My
daughter Amy, a professional designer, worked on the design with the
utmost care as with Islamic textiles the design is a prayer."
Continued