Exhibition: Drawing into Threads: Embroidery as Encounter

Hello, I am Polly Leonard the founder and editor of Selvedge Magazine. First and foremost. I am inspired by the variety of fibre the world has given us, each beautifully designed to serve a unique function. I love the crispness of cotton, the stiffness of linen, the rustle and lustre of silk, the downy texture of mohair, and the weight of wool, to name just a few of the rich variety on offer.

These fibres are woven into the history of human ingenuity. No resource has more diversity, from Chinese mud silk, Thai shiny indigo and Indian muslin, all the way to African bark cloth and British gansey knits. I love the richness of each country’s textile traditions. Whoever you are and wherever you are, whether you consciously know it or not - cloth is inextricably linked to your cultural heritage and identity. By studying cloth we see the evolution of the modern world laid before us: from the relationship between weaving baskets and building shelter to the linen woven into sails that were blown by the winds of global trade, and of course, to smart textiles that can sense, react and adapt.

Sadly, textiles are also at the forefront of the climate crisis and their production is tightly bound up with the inequalities that plague our society. I am embarrassed that this blight in our relationship with cloth has happened on my watch and in my lifetime.

I was born in 1966 when an average person spent over 10% of their income on clothing and shoes. The average person bought fewer than 25 garments a year. Fast forward half a century and the average person spends less than 3.5 % of their income on clothing and shoes. Yet, we buy more clothing than ever before: nearly 20 billion garments a year, close to 70 pieces of clothing per person, or more than one clothing purchase per week. More than 39 million tons of used textile waste is generated each year, and the amount has doubled over the last 20 years. Our love of textiles and an insatiable desire for ever-cheaper production may have created the climate crisis, but I believe that textiles also hold the key to a sustainable future.

I launched Selvedge magazine in 2004 to celebrate our cerebral and sensual addiction to cloth and promote the beautifully made and carefully considered. The stories that I bring to you through the pages of the magazine acknowledge the significance of textiles as a part of everyone's story. From why we love the sound of a needle pulling thread through taut linen, to why we are fascinated by the clothes we wear and the fibres we unknowingly rely on. As a publication Selvedge broadens my own horizons, and I fall more in love with textiles with every issue. Because I believe that the most interesting and evocative textile stories deserve to be shown in the best possible light, I work to ensure that every page is as carefully considered and beautiful as the textile stories told within it. As a continuation of the conversations I started in the pages of the magazine I produce a monthly podcast, fortnightly Instagram live, weekly newsletter and daily blog and an inspirational Instagram feed. Featuring exhibitions, people, adventures and opinion, the avenues for a meeting point for the Selvedge community and an entry point into the world of textiles for those looking for an original and broadening perspective.

More recently I launched the Selvedge World Fair to promote a sustainable alternative to unthought through purchases. At the fair, textile purchases can be carefully considered, buyers can meet the artisans who make these goods, heirloom pieces can be thoughtfully acquired. With this event, as well as in the pages of the magazine, Selvedge supports the makers of hand-made textiles from around the world to preserve cultural heritage and to build an environmentally and economically sustainable future in a society that respects all its members.

The Selvedge World Fair enables those who create handmade textiles to tell their own stories and share their cultural heritage, recontextualising the textiles we buy as part of rich material culture. As well as the World Fair we run regular Selvedge social evenings and workshops, focused on nurturing and promoting the designers and makers who inspire us. We believe our artisans are as much a part of our story as we are theirs – without them, Selvedge would not exist.

The Selvedge Fairs are not only for the designers and makers behind the things we love, they are for the Selvedge readers and community to experience the pages of the magazine in person. They are a meeting point for conversation, appreciation and of course the joys of forming your very own collection of beautifully made wares. Through our events and textile tours, we at Selvedge have often been reminded, “You can go anywhere in the world and as long as you’re with people who love textiles – you are in some way at home.”

Selvedge events are a crucial way for our readers also to connect with one another, forming friendships based on a mutual love of cloth. Time and time again we hear how people have left a Selvedge event feeling not only more inspired than when they arrived but that they have made new and lasting friendships.

In the pages of Selvedge, it has been my aim to make people, quite simply, see textiles differently. And in that difference - so much a part of the imagery that I create the pages of the magazine - to find beauty. Everything from the photography and illustrations we commission, to the paper stock that we print the magazine on, is about bringing you textiles at their aesthetic and thought-provoking best.