06/08/2026
Embroidered indigo child’s collar from the Miao or Puyi people in China’s Guizhou province: C19th Qing Dynasty
Many moons ago I went with a dear friend to visit the costume collection amassed by Charles Paget Wade. Stored in a freezing room so cold it made our noses drip and with freezing fingers we pointed to a selection of pale blue coffin length boxes with contents we thought the most enticing. Wade collected the everyday clothing of ordinary people, patched, worn, reworked, added to and cut down they seemed more human than the clothes of the wealthy preserved in museum collections. This collar took me back to that day in early spring that seemed to me better than any Christmas.
