something to celebrate
the Unstitched Coif exhibition has been and gone - my plans to visit were quashed by a cracked rib which stopped me from travelling at the last minute
but there was a happy bonus.......
along with the other participants i got an email:
Hello, I’m Susan North, curator of fashion before 1800 at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and Toni Buckby’s V&A supervisor. Thank you for participating in Toni’s project ‘an unstitched coif . . . ‘. I’m writing to ask if you would be willing to donate your embroidered coif to the V&A.
Toni’s group embroidery project has been a huge success beyond our initial modest estimates. We didn’t think there would be more than 40 people willing to participate. When Toni told me that she had hundreds of requests to join, I limited the V&A acquisition to 40 for logistical reasons –not having seen any of the results.
When I went to Toni’s display at Bloc Projects in Sheffield on 20 December 2023, I was blown away by the ingenuity, imagination, inventiveness and uniqueness of all the coifs – not to mention the skill and hours of labour that everyone put into their embroidery. I decided instantly that I wanted all 77 coifs, should everyone agree to donate, to record Toni’s project as a whole and the marvellous variety of everyone’s interpretation of 17th -century embroidery.
Your coif is stunning! I love the way you have interpreted traditional blackwork with such creativity. The variegated and the metal threads, and the use of different colours to outline the black infills are very striking and you’ve balanced all these elements so carefully. Using appliquéd fabric is genius and I’m glad you didn’t unpick any of it. Thank you for recording your experience with embroidery and your choices for the coif. I do hope that you will consider donating it to the V&A, although I recognise that you used all your own materials and I understand if you want to keep such a beautiful object.
Thank you again for your amazing contribution to Toni’s research
this was a complete surprise!
of course i will be donating my coif, at least i won't have to store it or try to work out what to do with it - the book with all the works submitted already takes up enough space!
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