Stitched Heart If I were to wear it around the house, the sleeves would drape into the butter dish. A pleasing but forbidden combination: grey wool, a pale pat of butter, deep blue...
Bianca Lucchesi
read more
Kate Feld
The Tweed That’s what I call it, though I don’t know if that’s what it really is. There are three colors in the cloth: a deep robin’s egg blue, a darker indigo and a bright purple,...
Jane O’Sullivan
Ill Fit I started sewing because of my ankles. It sounds Victorian, but I was an awkward teenager, rangy and tall. My school pants flapped about my calves like I was some kind of...
Susan Morris
Silence (On Prepared Loom) In the summer of 2019 I was invited by Vivien Lovell of Modus Operandi Art Consultants to submit a proposal to make new work for the recently completed...
Kylie Mirmohamadi
I I sort through my memories. The jacket hanging in my cupboard; a Japanese-style grey coat that I found in a vintage shop during the melanoma year. I wore it to a restaurant one...
Carol Tulloch
Jumper Jumper born by hand night and day, day and nightconsidered knit-purl patches, squares, oblongsembroidery cross, run over joins and planesbuckle into memories of its makingto...
Julie Perrin
Taupe and Teal When my mother was in her 80s, still spry and keen for a car trip, I took her to Tasmania. We stayed in a quaint cottage in a village outside Launceston. There were...
Sean Christopher Galloway
A Model of Obliscence I intended to write a moving epigraph on these perfect, high-ankle black designer leather boots that my older brother gave to me at his house in rural Missouri,...
Shu-Ling Chua
Like an Egg on a Spoon On our third date, sharing a comfy sofa at a bar in Werribee, you asked what my favourite colour was. “Why are you asking me?” It had seemed a child-like...
Susie Campbell
Ghost Garments I am haunted by the ghostly presence of Agnes Richter’s strange, hand-embroidered jacket. It has an uncanny presence. Even psychologist Gail Hornstein says...
Didem Caia
Suitable for Women For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be a man. Not a boy but a man. Growing up I don’t think I really knew what that meant, but there are a collection of...
Claire Wellesley-Smith
The Cardigan The cardigan was very basic: black cotton fine knit, long length, buttons, a masculine cut but bought in Top Shop - I wore it for years. Then the pockets developed holes...
Anne M Carson
The textile I want to describe is from The Lady and the Unicorn, a series of six 15th Century tapestries considered medieval masterpieces. I found an embroidery version of...
Hanife Melbourne
After 18 months of living in covid-induced slob-gear I’m here to share my clothing memories, adorations, hauntings, and dreams. I have loved reading Textile Message posts from...
Susan Bradley Smith
After finishing undergraduate studies in Sydney I spent the 1980s in London as a young journalist. Part of my job involved turning up at formal functions, and one lunchtime my...
Leila Lois
Since I can remember, textiles have provoked feelings of comfort, wonderment and desire. Like most children I had a comfort blanket, a cotton sateen pillow, printed with meadow...
Emilie Collyer
I find the textile message prompts existentially confronting. What does it mean to claim something as ‘favourite’? Is it a statement piece, like this yellow coat dress I found in a...
Fiona O’Connor
Where I went to school little girls learned to sew. In 1968 the school inspectorate praised the girls of Belgrove National School in Dublin, ‘for the neatness of their handwriting,...
Claire Rosslyn Wilson
I don’t normally dress boldly, I prefer the convenience of having an easy-to-match wardrobe, but I have a secret love for loud colours and complex patterns. Perhaps because of this,...
Mira Robertson
A piece of clothing that haunts you? The coat was olive green, knee length, and made of hairy wool that gave it a somewhat shaggy appearance. To my current-day eye, stylish and...
Clare Archibald
Your favourite piece of clothing? Textiles are so interwoven in my mind with the colour language they offer it is perhaps not surprising that my favourite piece of clothing is one I...