Wedding textiles around the world

INDONESIA: Batik hanging (tulis mui li), Java, ca. 1900. Cotton and natural dyes. Private collection

In Java, the Peranakan Chinese community-descended from Chinese migrants who married locally born women-was well established by the mid-19th century. This hanging was made to be suspended over the door to the bridal chamber at a Peranakan wedding and features auspicious symbols to ensure a successful future for the newly wed couple.

TAJIKISTAN: Embroidered veil (ruband), 19th century. Silk and cotton. The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1916.1235, Gift of Mr and Mrs J. H. Wade

A cotton netting rectangle in this elaborate veil allows the wearer to see, while concealing her face. It serves as a threshold object dividing visible and invisible realms. In weddings and related ceremonies, the veiling of a Tajik bride's face is symbolic of her transition into a new social status.

RUSSIA: Bed curtain border, 1800-1850. Linen, cotton, silk. Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1931, 2009.300.3424, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; gift of Mrs Edward S. Harkness in memory of her mother, Elizabeth Greenman Stillma

As well as being used for decorative purposes, Russian bed curtains and towels played an important role in ceremony. Bed curtains adorned sleighs at wedding and carnival processions. In addition to their traditional usage, towels were draped over mirrors and trees, hung on walls and used as offerings to the church.

MALI: Chequered blanket (kosso daamye) (detail), Soninké, Bamana or Fulani people, Banamba region, late 19th-carly 20th century. Cotton. British Museum, 2018,2036.373

Among the Fulani in Mali, a castelike group of weavers-the maabube-occupied a social position dependent on a continuing patronage from noble families. When an arkilla wedding hanging was required for the marriage of an elite family's daughter, a maabo weaver with a suitable level of expertise and knowledge of the required patterns had to be located. The patron would then have to persuade him to move into their compound and would be responsible for supporting the weaver, his family and animals during the several months that the weaving of an arkilla required. In this refined example, even the warps are indigo dyed; the chequerboard squares are particularly square (rather than rectangular) and the unusual red lines create an admirable rhythm to the minimalist design.

MOROCCO: Bridal wedding sash (hizam), Fez, 1800s. Silk and metal lampas. The Cleveland Muscum of Art, 1999.253, John L. Severance Fund

Fessi textiles (from the city of Fez) were extremely desirable among clite Moroccan women. At special occasions, including weddings, Fez sashes (hizam) would be folded lengthwise and wrapped around the waist, so the colours and designs coordinated with the wearer's attire. They were made on a drawloom with repeating designs; typically the colours on each half vary, but the designs are the same. But on this example a staggering ten different programmed patterns appear along its almost four-metre (13') length.

BANGLADESH: Kantha mirror cover (arshilata), Faridpur district, late 19th to early 20th century. Cotton with cotton embroidery in back, darning, satin and running stitch. Karun Thakar collection

Narrow kantha like this are said to have been used in wedding ceremonies, when a mirror would be used to place sindoor (vermilion) on the bride's forchead. Kantha embroideries were made for domestic and ceremonial use by both Hindu and Muslim Bengali women in undivided Bengal (now Bangladesh and West Bengal, India). Small square pieces were also used in wedding rituals as well as in pujas (religious ceremonies), as prayer mats and for wrapping religious books.

RUSSIA: Robe (hukht), Nivkh people, Amur River region, Khabarovsk Krai, Siberia, 19th century. Salmon skin, sinew, cotton thread; appliqué and embroidery. Minneapolis Institute of Art, The John R. Van Derlip Fund and the Mary Griggs Burke Endowment Fund est. by the Mary Livingston Griggs and Mary Griggs Burke Foundation; purchase from the Thomas Murray Collection 2019.20.31

Fish skin garments were favoured by the Nivkh people as they provided protection from the harsh winter, being lightweight, wind- and rainproof. Sinew thread expands when wet, filling needle holes and ensuring watertight seams. Coats made by women before they wed demonstrated their suitability. Wedding robes were elaborately decorated with fish-skin appliqué, here the motifs are interpreted as ducks, swans, or geese and are said to represent the bride's unborn children.

PERU: Woman's wedding mantle (Iliclla), southern Andes, late 16th to early 17th century. Tapestry weave, cotton warp, camelid fibre weft. The Met, 1908, 08.108.10, Rogers Fund

Before the arrival of the Spanish in Peru, the lliclla shoulder mantle was worn by Inka women of the nobility. After the mid-16th-century conquest, marriages between Spanish administrators and Inka noblewomen (nustas) took place as part of a strategic alliance, intended to legitimise the Spanish occupation, as Andean land rights followed matrilineal descent. As wives of high-ranking Spanish men, nustas were permitted to continue wearing native-style garments. But within this colonial-era lliclla's traditional layout is an interlacing lattice motif, seen in a wide variety of Spanish textiles, furniture and metalwork of the period.

TURKMENISTAN: Asmalyk (düýe halyk), Göklen of Garrygalla, Balkan province, late 19th to early 20th century. Embroidered and appliqué felt. The National Museum, Ashgabat, T-124

One of a pair, this five-sided asmalyk was made to cover an animal's flanks. The white ground associates it with a wedding. In its lower panel, a wedding caravan is depicted-featuring camels bedecked with festive trappings. Some are topped by a palanquin or litter (kejebe) in which the bride and relatives would travel. Two large mouth harps (gopuz) symbolise the celebratory nature of the occasion.

SWEDEN: Carriage cushion cover (åkdyna), Gärds, Skâne, inscribed 1852. Interlocked tapestry. The Khalili Collections, SW21

Woven dowry textiles were produced in Skâne, by women, for decorative domestic purposes. As prized, valuable family possessions, they tended only to be used for special occasions. The wedding akdyna might have been used during the marriage ceremony or for the carriage rides to and from the wedding-then for future journeys to church, or for sitting on when visitors came to the home. An inscription on this piece reads 1852.