There may be no metaphor as worn out as the metaphor of weaving: writers and filmmakers are often said to weave together strings of narrative; music can always be seen as a complex weaving of melodies and harmonies; physicists even speak... [more]

There may be no metaphor as worn out as the metaphor of weaving: writers and filmmakers are often said to weave together strings of narrative; music can always be seen as a complex weaving of melodies and harmonies; physicists even speak of the fabric of space-time. Sure, it's all too easy to speak of the warp and woof of existence; it's also irresistible and, often, appropriate. So many things seem to be woven together. DNA. The twenty-three-dimensional strings of quantum physics. Is this tired metaphor merely a sign of exhausted imaginations or a hint of the limitless potential of the art and the idea of weaving? Is it possible, ever, to put a halt to this metaphorical proliferation? And if not, if weaving has an inherent tendency to totalize both the semantic and the physical fields, is it even possible to still call it a metaphor, and not the way things are? Or would we have to say rather that weaving is a metaphor, but that things themselves are, in some sense, metaphorical? But this is all far, far too confusing, and threatens to postpone indefinitely the necessary discussion of the topic at hand: that is, textiles. At the intersection of function and fashion, where the two lines of necessity and leisure cross - let's not speak of their being woven together in weaving - the art of textiles resides. It is a sartorial and an industrial art. Textiles tend toward an art of decoration or adornment: the weaving of Persian and Chinese rugs, for example, or the immaculate Guatemalan huipile. Then there is the functional, industrial side: the art of developing strong, light fabrics such as fiberglass, carbon fiber, and Kevlar. Modern textile innovators push the limits of the industry by incorporating metal and even fiber-optic technology into their fabrics. This duality of textiles - the fact that it takes the forms of both pure adornment and pure function - may be what gives rise to the universal applicability of the metaphor of weaving: fabric is both form and function, style and content, surface and structure. Weaving seems to underlie every aspect of existence while it also ornaments its surface; weaving is both essential structure and superfluous design. Could we say that the art is itself woven between the two? But that would be going too far, certainly. That would be to say that the art of weaving weaves together inextricably the two supposedly separate domains of style and content. And who would want to do that? [show less]