December 2, 2018

Silken Resistance: A Short History of Ikat
Presentation by Dr. Richard Isaacson

Some pictures
click on the thumbnail for the full picture.




































Central Asian ikats are among the most dramatic and spectacular hand-dyed and hand-woven textiles ever produced, enthralling both for the technique used to create them, and for their fabulous patterns and designs. They are not, however, the first or only ikats made in the world. Combining insights from archeological excavations, photo archives and museum collections, Dr. Richard Isaacson will trace the history of ikat from the 5th century to the present, concentrating on the height of production in 19th century Uzbekistan. Silk ikats of that time, fabrics of fantastic color and design, were deemed too showy to allow their use by the Jewish population who helped make them, and not prestigious enough for either the Emir or the aristocracy, but they found a ready market among a broad swath of the newly prosperous residents of the Emirate of Bokhara and surrounding regions of Central Asia. Dr. Isaacson’s talk will incorporate rarely-seen French and Russian historical photographs of local people wearing ikat garments, providing a fascinating window into daily life and social class structure from the last third of the 19th century into the early 20th century in the Uzbek region, at the eastern edge of the Russian empire.

As are seen from the archival photos, ikats were not the only way of showing status in that period, but were widely sought by many different social groups in the dynamic Uzbek society. While brutally commercialized in the Soviet era, true ikat design and technique have recently reemerged with Uzbek independence. Dr. Isaacson will briefly explore the dissemination of Uzbek ikat influences into the contemporary world. These wonderful textiles have recently become popular with Western fashion designers, like Oscar de la Renta, and influence the home decoration market, when distributed by mass purveyors of furniture and textiles.





return to home page