Object note
This woolen apron woven by hand with the technique of (zili) is part of a Turkish clothing collection consisting of seven pieces that were stitched from different materials, all woven and hand embroidered. The rest of the collection includes:
– Silk cloak embroidered with zari ZI500640 TURKEY
– Striped silk jacket embroidered with zari ZI500640a TURKEY
– Felt jacket embroidered with zari ZI500640b TURKEY
– Cotton underwear (shirt) ZI500640c TURKEY
– Striped silk pants embroidered with zari matching the jacket ZI500640d TURKEY
– Linen Throw ZI500640e TURKEY
Object history
Over 15 years of traveling around Turkey, agent Jade Bréval bought these pieces from shops, small villages, and from people she has met during her travels.
Object features
This apron is woven from natural wool threads using a hand loom, similar to the method used for weaving carpet but with some technical additions. This method, called (zili), originates from the rural province of Tokat, which is located in the north of the country inland of the Black Sea.
This technique allows additional weft to float on the woven fabric, where the weaver inserts threads between the stitches of the weft and passes it from the side to float across the the fabric. The weaver creates several rows of these floating stitches, some of them horizontal in the form of (-), and some of them oblique (\), which is returned to again in order to add another stitch over it until it becomes an (X) shape. In the end, the geometric design on the apron becomes complete.
This apron is made of two narrow sections, combined linearly by hand stiches. This indicates that the width of the loom used was small. The middle seam, vertical side edges, and bottom are decorated with geometric shapes in a multi-coloured composition of fuchsia, orange, violet, ivory, green, and blue threads. Colourful tassels also adorn the middle seam and three edges. The upper side is left without tassels or patterning. The apron is tied around the waist with a pink and black striped braided wool tie.
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