Vintage Miscellany – December 13, 2015

I’m back from a whirlwind trip to the Land of the Billionaire Mouse, and I’ll have a few words on that subject a little later.  For now, let’s just concentrate on the latest from Fashion Land.

•  The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is discouraging the taking of photos (““a passive and superficial experience”)  by encouraging visitors to sketch.
• The Textile Museum of Canada has put up an interesting virtual exhibition on their website: Narrative Threads.
• Somehow someone at British clothing company Kokon To Zai thought it was a good idea to make a sweater that was a copy of a design on a sacred garment made by an  Inuit shaman in the 1920s.  The sweater has since been removed from market and they issued an apology of sorts to descendants of the the shaman.
• And in a story of copying of a different sort, Chanel bought several sweaters from Scottish knitter  Mati Ventrillon, and months later copies showed up in the Chanel pre-fall 2016 show. Chanel has issued an apology and has agreed to give credit where it is due.
• Many of the retail innovations credited to R.H. Macy actually came from his cousin and employee, Margaret Getchell.
• This blog post at Pattern Vault is so interesting because it shows that milliner Sally Victor designed at least two hats for Simplicity Patterns in 1950, even though her name is not on the pattern envelope.
• Look inside America’s textile factories with photographer Chris Payne.
• Josephine Chaus, the co-founder of the Chaus clothing line,has died.
•  See Norway’s oldest garment, a fabric tunic from AD300.
• The turn-around of Harris Tweed is really quite remarkable.
• Cotton spinning will be returning to Manchester, England.
• Amazon and the BBC have commissioned an eight-part TV series, set in the world of French haute couture following WWII.  
• NPR did an interesting story on the blue jeans manufacturing business in Los Angeles.