Border Lines

[Late-1930s Indian cotton printed with textile paints.  Courtesy of the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art.]

Major thanks to the WSJ's Off Duty editors for letting me share my passion for border fabrics in this weekend's beautiful issue (I still can't believe they didn't cut my reference to a 70s-style elephant-border-printed pillow spotted in the movie Rush -- the 1990s film, not last year's). Textile designers Michael S. Smith, Aleta Bartel-Orton, Lulu de Kwiatkowski and Zak Profera offer their viewpoints, too, so check it when you have a moment.

Next week, here on the blog, we'll explore antique and vintage examples. For now, an old favorite from Doris Duke's collection. The exhibition, Doris Duke's Shangri La is still traveling through the U.S. and will open at the University of Michigan Museum of Art on January 25.

[Francis Frith Musjid, Boorhaupore - From Frith Series 1822–1829 albumen print. UMMA.] 

A show that Duke might have appreciated, An Eye on the Empire: Photographs of Colonial India and Egypt, looks at how the burgeoning field of photography piqued Victorian curiosity about far off lands. This exhibition also opens at the UMMA, a bit later, on March 22.