The special interest day comprises three lectures, each exploring a textile and a road. We examine how textiles have changed the course of Central Asian history, politics and a way of life. We also revel in the intoxicating designs, colours, and techniques achieved with these three textiles, from breath-takingly intricate suzani embroidery and robes fit for a Shah, to world-class carpets, cheerful shyrdyk felts and diaphanous cotton, lighter than a spider’s web. Each lecture will also be embroidered with Chris Aslan’s own experience of living and working in the region for 15 years as he attempts to justify a rather bold assertion, 'that everything is about textiles'.

The Wool Road

How did tartan-wearing proto-Celts end up in China over 2500 years ago? We explore how nomads traversed the wool road, a vast corridor of grassland that stretched from Central Europe almost to the Pacific. With little fuel or shelter and winters down to minus 60 degrees, it was houses made from wool that gave these nomads the protection they needed. We focus on decorative felts, carpets and the way in which beautiful nomadic textile were perfectly functional as well.

The Silk Road

In this lecture we explore the birth of the Silk Road and how silk fuelled trade in goods, foods, art, inventions, commodities, religions, fashions and so much more, ushering in the first era of globalisation.

We explore how silk is woven into beautiful fabrics, such as, atlas, velvet, and adras, and how fabric was a major signifier of wealth and stratifying sedentary society. How did one item of women’s clothing spark a culture war which led to public burnings of silk? We marvel at the dowry embroideries produced in Bukhara and the magical and amuletic protection woven into most clothing. We explore how silk stratified society, through stunning robes and turbans, and Chris gives a brief overview of the silk carpet workshop he founded in Khiva, Uzbekistan.

The Cotton Road

The Cotton Road is inextricably interwoven with colonial exploitation and environmental catastrophe. We explore how British Rule caused the extinction of the most expensive fabric that had ever been woven, and how cotton became a form of anti-colonial resistance, leading to the overthrow of British rule in India. We explore the darker side of Russian chintz and that thieving Laura Ashley! We also witness how cotton has killed a sea, creating an environmental disaster even more devastating to human health than that better known Soviet disaster: Chernobyl, and the experiences of cotton-pickers today.