Blog | John E. Vollmer

Asian Fine Art Textiles

[re]THINK SILK Background – part 1

Jul 17, 2020 | News

In the early summer of 2018 Sarah Fee, Senior Curator, Global Fashion & Textiles (Asia and Africa) telephoned me to ask if I would be interested in organizing an exhibition focused the Royal Ontario Museum’s renown Chinese textile collection. Without hesitation, the...

Greetings for 4719 – Chinese Year of the Rat

Jan 23, 2020 | News

"Jordie," © Alice Gur-Arie. All rights reserved www.alicegur-arie.com Celebrating the Year of the Rat 2020 Alice Gur-Arie's quest for this year's image involved a trip to the London Zoo and the subterranean Night Life display, where "Jordie' played hide-and-seek...

Cloth Cultures: Legacies of Dorothy K. Burnham – report

Nov 16, 2017 | News

Nearly 150 textile scholars, students, practitioners, artists and enthusiasts gathered in Toronto, Ontario November 9-11, 2017 for conference Cloth Cultures: Legacies of Dorothy K. Burnham. On Day 1 a set of workshops focused on artifacts from the collection of the...

Turn back your cuffs

Oct 16, 2017 | Chinese dress

Perhaps because cuffs are so ubiquitous in our culture I totally missed the point of the shaped extension on Manchu robe sleeves when I first focused on them back in the 1970s. These prominent features of Manchu and Manchu-styled garments cannot be missed. They were...