We explore the knitwear at the V&A in London
MUSEUM COLLECTIONS
EXQUISITELY HAND
crafted in hues of azure blue and lime green, with carefully twisted and spiralled glasswork elements, the sculptural eight-metre Rotunda chandelier creates a dramatic first impression in its suspension within the Grand Entrance Hall to London’s Victoria and Albert Museum.
Demonstrating historic techniques of Venetian glassmaking combined with contemporary design, this is considered a highlight for many visitors to a worldfamous collection which encompasses five thousand years of art and design.
Leading past the Grand Entrance Hall, through meandering passageways and across twelve acres of exhibition space, you will find an excess of two million objects such as sculpture, ceramics, jewellery, photography and fashion, which attract more than four million visitors from across the globe each year.
During the early years of the V&A, which was known as the South Kensington Museum until 1899, the focus of the museum was on textiles, materials, techniques and design, including knitting; their earliest acquisition of knitting was an 18th-century silk pincushion in 1864. The V&A’s fashion and textiles curator, Susan North, explains that the museum’s collecting policy began to shift during the 1970s. “The interest in collecting contemporary fashion was pioneered by
Cecil Beaton with his exhibition Fashion:
An Anthology in 1971,” says Susan. “When Sir Roy Strong became V&A Director in 1974, he emphasized contemporary collecting across all departments, and now the majority of new acquisitions are late 20th and 21st century examples.”
Historic treasures
Within its current fashion collection, a series of interesting pieces shows the versatility, skill and creativity of knitwear. “Amongst our current collection, in terms of knitting, it’s not only innovation of unique designs that we wish to include, but also (and these are often related) technical excellence,” Susan explains. “We also look for objects that exemplify the best and most typical knitting of a particular period.”
As part of a larger department of Furniture, Textiles and Fashion, within the latter is the bulk of the V&A’s knitted collection. “There are also examples of knitting within the V&A’s Asia collections, Theatre and Performance, Design, Architecture and Digital, and the Museum of Childhood,” Susan reports.
Managing the collection as part of a wider team of ten experts, the Textiles and Fashion department ensures that each piece is carefully preserved, stored and displayed within the museum’s fashion exhibition gallery. In most cases, items are generously donated by the public, by designers or, if funding allows, some are purchased acquisitions. Each object is then meticulously categorised through a complex computer system. “This is a very detailed system which includes descriptions of objects by their type, materials, techniques, dates and provenance,” Susan explains. “This system feeds the ‘Explore the Collections’ feature on the V&A’s website, and allows researchers to find objects by a variety of descriptors including their age. This is a continual slow process of cataloguing objects acquired before 1998, and is still ongoing.”
The earliest example of knitwear within the collection is a fragment which is believed to have been a sock and dates back to 12th century Egypt. “This was donated by Mrs Russell in Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire, but there is no record of how she acquired it – presumably it came from a visit or stay in Egypt,” says Susan. “We also have examples of very early ‘single-needle knitting’ or ‘nålbinding’ as it is known by the Scandinavian term. Another valuable piece within our collection is a magnificent example of a jacket knitted in Italy in the 17th century with very fine silk yarn and metal threads; this process created an intricate design to imitate the patterns of woven silks.”
One of the main threats to the existence of historical knitwear, Susan explains, is that clothing was known to have been recycled – especially during the past, when the value of the materials lasted much longer than the style of the garment into which they were made. “Clothing was taken apart and remade into new garments for children. It was also given to servants or sold to second-hand clothing dealers who provided the bulk of dress for the working classes in the days before ready-made clothing. It was common for knitting to be frequently unravelled and the yarn reused; we only have the garments in our museum collections because someone put them away for future use and they were forgotten for decades or centuries.”
As well as the challenge in obtaining such pieces, Susan describes how pest control is essential for the preservation of all of the V&A’s woollen items. “There are no safe and effective deterrents, so pest activity is monitored with special traps. If we find evidence of moth or carpet beetle
on an object, we freeze it. In addition, new acquisitions are frozen when they come to the museum to prevent new infestations.” Susan adds that the team continues to conserve items rather than restore or mend: “Our Textile Conservators stabilise areas of lost fabric rather than replacing or reworking them. In terms of knitting, this means stabilizing threads to prevent further unravelling and when preparing knitted (and woven) objects for display, holes are often disguised by putting a piece of fabric dyed in a matching colour behind it.”
Homely & high-fashion
Progressing through its collection, beyond its older examples and moving into the
19th century, Susan describes a beautiful series of beaded knitwear pieces, a technique which gained in popularity during this period, but was also very time-consuming. “The sequence of colours in the beaded pattern had to be counted out and strung onto the yarn before the knitting could start,” she says.
The poignancy of many of the V&A’s handknitted items is further emphasised by a piece which shows an unfinished section of fine silk. “The personal nature of a handknitted object and its connection to the hands of the knitter is shown on this unfinished piece, which is still on its very thin needles. The accompanying card explains: ‘My dear sister’s work, as she left it the last time she did any.’” Susan believes that these items enhance the collection and may resonate with modern-day knitters. “While our collections focus on ‘tour-deforce’ examples of knitting, we have a few humble pieces that acknowledge those just learning the art. We have an unidentical ‘pair’ of knee warmers made for the elderly banker, Thomas Coutts, in the early 19th century; they illustrate a mistake in the calculation of the ribbing which anyone learning to knit might make!”
Within its more recent examples, the collection includes a couture knitted dress from the renowned designer Maria Luck-Szanto. “She was an extraordinary designer during the 1950s and 1960s,” says Susan. “A lace-patterned, one-piece knitted dress is part of a fine collection which illustrates her talent in writing patterns.”
The department is also in the process of acquiring a JW Anderson cardigan which was worn by the singer Harry Styles in 2020. “A crocheted version by artist Liv Huffman was shown on social media and it garnered an incredible response; over the course of the international pandemic and lockdowns, the cardigan went viral. Furthermore, it was so popular that Jonathan Anderson created an uploaded pattern which crashed his own website.” Susan adds that Harry Styles and JW Anderson have donated the original cardigan and in addition, the V&A has also acquired Liv Huffman’s original crocheted version. Both pieces are now on display in the V&A’s Fashion Gallery.
As well as Harry Styles’ cardigan, another recent acquisition is a set of nine pieces of men’s knitwear by Jay Musson and Stephen Bennington, produced in the 1970s. These incorporate bold designs inspired by contemporary graphics, and include one of their handknitted jumpers made for Browns.
Susan feels that “these examples demonstrate our ongoing pursuit for a variety of interesting objects, although, with all of our pieces, it’s impossible to choose the value of one object over another - from a fragment of ancient Egyptian knitwear to a more contemporary design, they are all endlessly interesting and unique in their own way.”