Five minutes with a friend: Noel Chapman of Bleu Anglais
China’s material culture may be synonymous with silk but paste resist indigo cloth has also played an important and revealing role in the county’s history. The indigo blue textiles known today variously as Lan Yin Hua Bu, Nankeen Blue and simply as Blue Calico can be traced back to the Song Dynasty (1208 – 1224 CE), originating in Jiangsu Province. As techniques spread, regional variations and characteristics evolved.
Noel Chapman has been entranced by these indigo paste-resist fabrics since the 80s, when he saw an exhibition of Chinese Folk Embroidery collected in the 30’s by Dr Carl Schuster. At that time he was running his own fashion line and the simple stylised cross stitch patterns translated perfectly into knitwear. ‘Somewhere along the way I learned about indigo paste-resist textiles too,’ he explains – very modestly given that today he is the go-to man for expertly sourced antique indigo textiles.
Noel will be speaking at our upcoming online symposium, Irresistible to discuss the irresistible nature of resist-dyeing techniques around the world. Irresistible will be held online, on Zoom, on Saturday 8 June at 14:00 BST. Book your tickets on our website here.
What is your first memory of a textile?
A patchwork quilt on my bed made from Mums old sewing scraps, I remember my Mum pointing to different patterns and telling me about the different clothes they had been. Then watching and later helping my Mum and much later my big sister cutting out and dressmaking, me collecting the offcuts and making clothes for my teddy bear.
Can you put into words what you love about textiles?
The stories behind, the cultural history threaded through them. The skills and workmanship - I was always fascinated how things were made, how they were done. I was known as the ‘animal rescue’ of textiles, buying and saving things because ‘it took somebody hours to create’ or because of the suggestion of exotic lands pieces held. At university where I studied Fashion & Textiles, I would come in on Monday with a bag of textile scraps I’d bought at jumble sales, charity shops and markets, as consequence one of my tutors called me ‘a snapper up of unconsidered trifles’.
What has inspired you recently?
Sometimes inspiration is almost intangible, almost a whiff of something, an association that begins the spinning of a tale in my head. I’ve recently been reading poems from 'A Year of Last Things’ by Michael Ondaatje. I just bought 'Outside In - A year of growing and displaying' by Sean Pritchard, which is full of lush photographs of his home and garden flowers. I absolutely loved the 'Sargent and Fashion’ exhibition at Tate Britain, especially the painting of La Carmencita accompanied by her beautiful tulle dress and the little film of her dancing in 1894 in the very dress. I moved home just a couple of weeks ago to Hastings, so of course the sea is a constant and ever-changing fascination. Another month it could be a completely different set of things and atmospheres, but for me there’s always a thread.
What is your most cherished textile, and why?
This is a tricky question, there’s probably not one and certainly monetary value has little to do with it - I've a couple of beautiful late C19th Chines indigo embroidered marriage bed hangings I’ll never part with, a very fragile Japanese indigo rice bag, patched, mended and re-mended and currently I love a piece of funky 1960’s modernist church embroidery I recently found in a damp cardboard box at a flea market. But this list could go on for pages.
Where did you learn about Chinese paste-resist textiles?
I saw an exhibition at the South Bank in London in the early 1980’s about Chinese folk embroidery - indigo on ecru and ecru on indigo mostly from a collection in Chicago Museum, that I based a fashion and knitwear collection on for my own label - the embroidery was linked to the indigo paste resist fabrics and I loved them, but never found them. I then discovered the Japanese Katazome rice-paste resist fabrics. It was in I think 2016 on one of my fashion related trips to China that I found myself with a couple of free days to explore and in a little Hutong in a tiny shop the size of a cupboard behind the now defunct flea market in Shanghai, I found a stash of the Nankeen indigo textiles that have become probably my main speciality. There is very little information and documentation about them, much of that is incorrect, so most of what I have learned has been from my own research since then and I’m still learning.
Irresistible will be held online, on Zoom, on Saturday 8 June at 14:00 BST. Book your tickets on our website here.
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