Selvedge Issue 128: Routes

From Polly Leonard, Founder of Selvedge Magazine:

Trade tariffs, which raise the price of imported goods to protect domestic industries, have dominated headlines throughout 2025. Yet this economic strategy is nothing new. In the late Middle Ages, English monarchs Edward III and Henry VII imposed high export tariffs on raw wool to discourage its sale to Flemish weavers. Centuries later, during the Industrial Revolution, Britain levied steep duties on imported Indian cottons to protect its developing textile industry.

Trade and textiles have always been intertwined. In this issue, we explore the East–West exchanges that have shaped material culture for centuries. From the early modern period, long-distance maritime trade by South Asian and Middle Eastern dhows (ships with a long, thin body and slanted triangular sails) created a dynamic network linking peoples, cultures, and civilisations from Southeast Asia to the eastern coast of Africa.

Sea routes remain vital today: around 90 percent of global trade still moves across the oceans, connecting continents and driving the world economy. Modern container ships contrast sharply with the once-celebrated tea clipper Cutty Sark, whose cargo of tea and wool sailed under billowing linen canvases hoisted on jute ropes. The intricate rigging of these ships was recorded by sailors in embroidered woollies, immortalising the maritime world with needle and thread.

Cloth was central to the value carried in those cargoes. For millennia, textiles have functioned as both commodity and currency, carrying economic weight and cultural meaning. The histories of indigo and cotton trace the rise and fall of colonial economies, where trade, exploitation, and artistry were tightly interwoven. Yet Indian artisans, whose skill and ingenuity fuelled global demand, shaped these exchanges to their advantage – creating cloths for every market, from the fine muslins coveted in Europe to the boldly patterned cottons traded along Africa’s coast. From this rich interplay emerged distinctive textiles including the telia rumal in southern India and the kanga of East Africa – each a testament to centuries of shared technique, taste, and trade.

Today, these routes continue to carry more than goods. They transmit ideas, technologies, languages, and beliefs across continents. When approached with sensitivity and respect, such exchanges enrich rather than exploit. Designers like Uma Wang, who reinterprets the Bhutanese gho, and Mariana Silva Varela, whose woven works explore the enduring symbolism of gold, remind us that cross-cultural dialogue remains a fertile ground for creativity.

As this year draws to a close, may I take this opportunity to wish all our readers health, prosperity, and happiness in 2026.