Pictured with my loom, Dorothy, that I use for demonstrations and teaching. Photo by Casey Gutteridge.

I had a ‘pinch me’ moment last week when showcasing my passementerie work at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, a place I have visited hundreds of times since I was a teenager!

Last week I had the privilege of showcasing my work and demonstrating how hand woven passementerie is made at the Victoria and Albert museum in London as part of the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust (QEST) annual fundraising dinner. 17 QEST scholars were asked to display and demonstrate their craft and there was a wonderful array of crafts on show including thatching, pewter making, glass making, puppet making and stone carving, to name just a few! If you haven’t heard about QEST before, the charity is dedicated to supporting excellence in British craftsmanship through funding scholarships for professional craftspeople. QEST aims to sustain vital skills in traditional and contemporary crafts and late last year I was awarded the QEST ADAM Architecture scholarship which is enabling me to undertake in depth training focusing on learning advanced, off-loom passementerie skills.

A colourful and textural array of hand woven passementerie.

I was delighted to be asked to show my work, especially as Passementerie is an ‘endangered’ craft within the UK and I am one of a small handful of independent makers still working with this amazing art form. I am proud to be working with a traditional, heritage, British craft and I love the opportunity to showcase my contemporary take on passementerie to new people. I am passionate about breathing new life into my craft through working with energetic and unusual colour palettes, exciting materials and new, contemporary applications for passementerie.

Demonstrating at the Victoria and Albert museum was a wonderful opportunity to share a little of my passementerie world with guests and QEST patrons and it was brilliant to hear and see such enthusiasm for my craft. Spreading the word about contemporary passementerie is vitally important as I am one of only 4 independent hand passementerie makers still working in the UK today. There are serious concerns for the ongoing viability of the hand making of passementerie in the UK and when the next issue of the Red List of Endangered Crafts is published, it is highly likely that passementerie will be recategorised as ‘critically endangered’ as so few professional makers remain.

I am passionate about advocating for this amazing form of both art and craft and I am determined to ensure that the the hand making of passementerie continues to be practiced in the UK for generations to come. Passementerie is a fascinating part of the UK’s cultural heritage and it is so important to ensure that this craft not only survives, but thrives.

The Victoria & Albert Museum has a small collection of antique passementerie on display, although they do take a little bit of seeking out to find. The Tudor galleries have a small display of wonderful tassels, fringes on alter cloths and other little textile embellishments. The fashion gallery also has a charming display of Georgian textiles, with some delightful examples of trimmings on show.

Showcasing contemporary passementerie at the Victoria and Albert Museum