We look at fabrics as the canvas of history, telling us of lives and dreams through the centuries, of beauty and grandeur, a true masterpiece of skillful hands and pure ingenuity.
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Other than the biblical story of Adam and Eve and the fig leaves, little is known of how and why people started covering their bodies. My hunch would have been that it was for protection from the elements. Yet, modern archeology has uncovered that it was women who started dressing themselves and it was an apron, a skirt of twisted strings suspended from a hip band, that was worn during important lifetime rites of passage such as mating rituals, childbearing, and tribe wars (women were soldiers too).
As far back as 20,000 years ago, in the Neolithic, the Garvettian culture living in central and eastern Europe, its old heartland, used clothing as an aide to get messages of belonging or purpose across, as a means of communication rather than as a practical solution to the inconveniences of a then primitive life.
Fast forward to Classical Greece, elaborate weaving techniques were the realm of women who were restricted to the home spaces, and this was their source of economic power and social status. Employing servants at home, highborn women were the only ones who could afford to dedicate time and creative energy to lavish textiles. After decorating themselves and their homes, they would sell any surplus on a market ready to generously spend on such items.
A fascinating example of the cultural importance and meaning woven into a textile centerpiece is the peplos, the dress which Athenian women wove with dedication in service of their patron goddess. Each year, to mark goddess Athena’s birthday, a festival known as the Panathenaia (“The Festival of All Athenians”) would attract people from far and wide to see the newest peplos.
The textile was a coloured tapestry with lavish ornamentation depicting the epic battle between gods and giants, which Athena and her father Zeus, king of the gods, led to victory. Coloured in saffron yellow and sea purple, this dress was the privileged nine-month work of the head priestess and selected girls from aristocratic Athenian families living on the Acropolis. The sacred procession to dress the statue of Athena, goddess of weaving, among other things, was a rare opportunity for freeborn Athenian women to leave their homes, yet a strong sign of their skills and status in society, which the lauded craft of weaving allowed them to assume.
Messages and meaning woven into textile, as well as the social structures that allowed it to come to life, are an under-researched, undervalued territory of women’s work because of the way we assume those signals on a subconscious level. We are so used to them that it doesn’t occur to us just how important they are. And when we start losing them, a gap of purpose opens.
ODAYA Home sets on a journey to uncover the true value that handmade textile carries. Symbols, symmetries, figures, colours – they all have a story of origin that dates back hundreds, if not thousands, of years. It is also the story of the craftswomen who dedicated their lifetimes to work on fibers, fabrics and laces, entwining a fascinating tale of intent and mastery. This story is alive today, hidden in the picturesque villages of Europe, in the homes of artisans who never used social media, in the collective memory of families who never had a public voice or a means to record it. It is an honor for ODAYA Home to start telling their story in the style that it deserves.
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