SUSAN MELLER has spent years assembling, researching, categorizing, and digitally restoring the 1,285 labels and prints highlighted in this marvelous new book. She has been collecting and studying textiles for more than forty years. In the 1960s she worked in the New York textile industry as a designer and strike-off artist for Riegel Textile Corporation, Dan River Mills, and other fabric converters, traveling to their mills in Ware Shoals, S.C., Trion, Ga., and Beacon, N.Y. to supervise the printing of each season’s line of fabrics. This early experience gave her invaluable insight into the working operations that were still, in many respects, the same as those of 19th century cotton mills. She later founded and created the Design Library, formerly in New York City and now located in Wappingers Falls, N.Y. With over seven million designs, the Design Library is the most extensive commercial archive of period textiles in the world.
SUSAN MELLER is author of:
Silk and Cotton: Textiles from the Central Asia that was (Abrams, 2013; La Martinière, 2013)
“Best book in years on the fascinating and complex world of Central Asian textiles. Meller’s thorough study of archival sources along with her deep understanding of textile production in the region combine to make this an important contribution to the field…Highly recommended!”
– Andy Hale, co-author Ikat: Silks of Central Asia; Uzbek Embroidery: In the Nomadic Tradition
Russian Textiles: Printed Cloth for the Bazaars of Central Asia (Abrams, 2007)
“Russian Textiles is one of those rare and serendipitous books that can be judged by its cover. From first bold photo to final footnote, the bright, complex language of Russian trade cottons, mostly hidden as linings of Central Asian ikat robes and embroidered wall hangings, is given full voice in Susan Meller’s new book.”
– HAND/EYE Magazine
Co-author of:
Textile Designs: Two Hundred Years of European and American Patterns for Printed Fabrics (Abrams, 2002)
“This wonderful book is a little bit like being let loose unsupervised in the archives of the Victoria and Albert Museum.”
– The NEW YORK TIMES
Contributing Author to:
Colors of the Oasis: Central Asian Ikats (The Textile Museum, 2010)
