V&A textile collection

Felix on febric ... in the frames

The textile collection has moved from its tired-looking rooms to a new space not too far from the museum called The Clothworkers' Centre, which can be visited by appointment, or you can book onto the tours that take place on the last Friday of the month. No doubt this centre provides optimum storage conditions for fragile textiles, but its relative inaccessibility rather makes textiles feel negligible and/or marginalised. But museum buildings are not infinitely expandable, so other arrangements must be made for part of the collectio.

These videos last for about 2 1/2 minutes each, and show the facility and some of the items held there -
http://vimeo.com/85453423 (contemporary fashion)
http://vimeo.com/85452309 (asian textiles)
http://vimeo.com/85450493 (pre-1800)
http://vimeo.com/85447838 (highlights from the collection)

The Felix The Cat fabric from 1924 is shown in the Highlights video (it's one of three different Felix fabrics in the museum's collection). If you visited the V&A's textiles collection in the "old days" you might recognise the handles in the picture above as being part of "the frames", cabinets storing mounted pieces, which could be taken to a desk for close study.

In the photo of the old Room 100 (via), you can see flaps that supported the individual frames (the glass made them quite heavy) when pulled out; these could be (and often were) raised and locked. Along the well are the viewing stands and study tables.

Via the online collections search page you can find thousands of textiles in the collections and read about their history, and save yourself the journey to the museum!