Haptic & Hue

Have you ever wanted a Picasso on your walls – or maybe a Joan Miro, a Chagall, or perhaps a Raoul Dufy? For a time in the mid-50s in America you could buy work by these artists for just a few dollar…

Who doesn’t love a good tartan? It is everywhere from high fashion catwalks to shooting parties on winter hillsides, from military uniforms on parade to much-loved old sofas. It is at home in the hum…

This is the tale of how textiles played a central part in one of the great cultural and artistic upheavals of the last century, helping to bring about a change that was to reach deep into many lives…

Warning: This podcast and the text below uses terms considered offensive and inappropriate today.

An extraordinary sample of indigo cloth has been found in a British record office which is thoug…

It’s Carnival season, time to take to the streets for a party and see the spectacle. But Carnival is about so much more than that. At its heart is the idea that with costumes and masks, people can be…

The little needle is one of the oldest tools in existence. We know that human beings began to use them more than sixty thousand years ago. Needles, and the textiles that came later have changed human…

Clothes are a window to our identity – they tell others who we are, what we believe in, and whether we are rich or poor, powerful or powerless. They also tell us a great deal about who someone is, wh…

Mary Queen of Scots is one of the most written about women in history. We think we know her well – but here’s a new account that re-interprets her life from the point of view of the textiles she wore…

A ragged flag and torn flag, nearly eighty years old was posted last month from a home not far from London. It doesn’t look like much but it is infinitely precious, both to the person who sent it and…

Imagine the person who sits behind the counter in the post office or serves your coffee in the Main Street coffee shop has a superpower, one that she shares with your child’s teacher, the administrat…

What happens to your old clothes? Do you drop them off at the charity shop or turn them into the textile recycling bin at the store? They leave your wardrobe and your thoughts – but what happens next…

The long arc of human history has been accompanied since the 1400s one way or another by lace. The Italians call this, delightfully, ‘Stitches in Air’ and it has many origin myths from the Venice lag…

The Italian Renaissance produced glorious masterpieces by artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Michaelangelo who are justly feted for their talent. But look again at these pictures and you realise that…

In 18th century London, the secret of your birth could literally hang by a thread. If your mother took you to the Foundling Hospital because she was unable to care for you, you were given a new ident…

Over the past months, we have watched in horror as nearly ten million people have fled their homes in Ukraine to escape the Russian invasion. They have become the world’s latest refugees. That word w…

Welcome to the fourth season of Haptic and Hue’s Tales of Textiles. This season is called Threads of Survival and the eight episodes focus on people who have seen hardship and difficulty, but who hav…

Can a nation simply forget an astonishing operation in which its women and children made nearly half a million quilts to comfort the victims of the Second World in Europe? It seems that Canada has co…

Samplers tell stories in stitch, but whose tale are they telling? Perhaps the story of a young woman describing her family and choosing her own patterns and pictures, a child learning her alphabet an…

There’s a way of producing cloth that has been called 200 years of secrecy and lies. It has played a central role in wars, and slavery. It was the foundation of cheaper clothing and clothes rationing…

How do textiles shape a city, and how, in turn, does a city and its people shape and change the world of textiles? This episode looks at what the fabrics created in Lyon, in France, tell us about the…