‘Irene Emery’s great book is so well established as a work of reference that it is difficult to imagine how one previously muddled through without it’ – Museum News

‘Removes the mystery from textiles, once and for all. The lucid text, the superb photographs, the extensive bibliography and the detailed index all combine to make this book absolutely essential to museum workers and archaeologists’ – Archaeology

‘Will appeal to both the layman and the experienced textile specialist’ – Handweaver and Craftsman

Based on years of study of a huge range of fabrics produced by hand or by strictly limited mechanization, its essential strength is its universality. Covering design, history, cultural significance, chronological and wide geographical scope, a definition of the structural makeup of fabrics and their parts is made clear and accessible to all.

Illustrated both with specially constructed and photographed examples and with extant fabrics from different cultures, the book is divided into three parts:
• the raw materials of fabrics (filaments and fabric elements);
• the fabric structures themselves, felted or interworked yarns
• structures such as stitches or appliqué.

Irene Emery (1900–1981) was Curator of Technical Studies at the Textile Museum in Washington. Irene Emery’s innovative construction of a comprehensive system of terminology for describing fabrics was recognized as a classic on its first publication in 1966.

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