Felt Moment

"The desire to touch is strong with most textiles, but particularly so with felt," says Susan Brown in a New York Times piece by Tim McKeough (3/5/09). "There’s something so tactile about it. Susan will also "tell you that felt is having a very big moment, finding its way into everything from fashion and product decision to architectural installations and home furnishings."

Her own feelings for felt are such that Susan, an assistant curator at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum "has organized an exhibition at the museum called Fashioning Felt." The show "explores the many uses of felt, from traditional pieces, like a Turkish shepherd’s cloak and an Afghan saddle pad, to contemporary objects like the ‘personal uniforms’ designed and worn by the artist Andrea Zittel as conceptual art."

Susan explains that felt is "different from other fabrics because it is made not by knitting or weaving but by matting wool fibers together using water and friction." She says that the result "is very comforting, warm and inviting." She adds: "It’s a little bit liberated from the constraints of other textiles … It’s a really wonderful, yet strange material." Her show runs through September 7th (link). ~ Tim Manners, editor.