Artistic Textiles and Fashion—Unraveling Turn of the Century Design
Dianne Ayres, Arts and Crafts Period Textiles

Hand-embroidered pillow worked from a Richardson’s Silk Company (founded 1887) kit, linen with cotton and silk embroidery threads

Novelty pillow with automobile motoring scene, circa 1900

Burlap (or “monks cloth”) portieres at the Riordan Mansion, Flagstaff, AZ, attributed to Gustav Stickley’s Workshops, circa 1905
The premise of Dianne Ayres’ presentation is that textiles provide the greatest insight into the life and soul of an era. Textiles, which are ephemeral in nature, provide a ready vehicle for contemporary design aesthetic and currently fashionable color palettes. Textiles of the Arts and Crafts period in America, ranging from home craft to industrial mass production, provide a fascinating case study. Association with lionized art figures, such as William Morris, add to their evanescent allure.
Basic tenets of the Arts and Crafts movement advocated veneration of nature, honesty of materials, simplicity and attention to design and craftsmanship. These textiles played an integral role in creating a cheerful, comfortable, friendly home of the period, as well as a means for Arts and Crafts adherents to clothe themselves fashionably.
While the Arts and Crafts movement did not dominate American style during the early 20th century, it set the trend. Its designs reflected the quickly changing society and lifestyle at a time when the fashionable world recoiled from Victorian excess. Contemporary magazines and other publications, as well as the textiles themselves, permit collectors and researchers to unravel this exciting period in textile history.
Contributors to the movement’s textile heritage include a wide-ranging cast of characters designing, creating, and popularizing Arts and Crafts interiors. Candace Wheeler (1827–1923) was an early interior and textile designer, member of Louis Comfort Tiffany’s Associated Artists and designer of the interior of the Women’s Building for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Her father’s strict abolitionism resulted in the family growing flax and weaving their own linen to avoid buying cotton grown by slaves.
Arthur Wesley Dow (1857–1922) was an influential artist and teacher who emphasized the principles of pure design, craftsmanship over manufacture and bridging the gap between Eastern and Western art. He anticipated the East-West synthesis achieved by modernist artists in the early 20th century. Gustav Stickley’s (1858–1942) furniture designs were simple, honest in construction and true to their materials, while selectively incorporating some industrial techniques and mass marketing. Stickley designs relied upon textiles, especially portieres, to accommodate Arts and Crafts interior designs. New Orleans’ Newcomb College pottery (1895–1940), sold at leading department stores across the country, was given as fashionable wedding presents. The Deerfield Society of Blue and White Needlework (1896–1926) aligned craftsmanship with designs inspired by the Colonial Revival. Edward Bok (1863–1930), editor of the Ladies Home Journal from 1889 to 1919, and Chicago’s Marshall Field & Company, both helped popularize the Arts and Crafts movement to the mass market.
Dianne Ayres learned custom sewing from her grandmother. She studied weaving and surface design at Indiana University, and subsequently earned a bachelor’s degree in conservation and resource studies from the University of California at Berkeley.
Dianne Ayres has pursued custom sewing of textiles, specializing in turn-of-the-century Arts and Crafts textiles, since 1981. In 1987, she established Arts & Crafts Period Textiles in Oakland. Ms Ayres and her husband, Timothy Hansen, collect linens and literature of the period. They are members of Artistic License, an artisans guild. They are also active in Berkeley’s Hillside Club; Dianne is a past president.
Dianne contributed to American Arts & Crafts Textiles (2002) with Timothy Hansen, Beth Ann McPherson and Tommy McPherson. She has also published “A Primer on Arts & Crafts Textiles” (Arts & Crafts Quarterly [now Style 1900], 1991) and “Yesterdays in a Busy Life: Candace Wheeler” (The Tabby, 1996). Dianne regularly presents lectures and workshops to embroidery guilds around the country, including Pasadena (CA) Heritage Craftsman Weekend; Grove Park Inn Arts & Crafts Conference (Asheville, NC); and Craftsman Farms (Parsippany, NJ).