Podcasts by Haptic
Haptic & Hue's Tales of Textiles explores the way in which cloth speaks to us and the impact it has on our lives. It looks at how fabric traditions have grown up and the innovations that underpin its creation. It thinks about the skills that go into constructing it and what it means to the people who use it. It looks at the different light textiles cast on the story of humanity.
Further podcasts by Jo Andrews
Podcast on the topic Design
All episodes
The Point of The Needle - How the Ancient Craft of Stitching Shapes Us from 2023-12-07T04:01
The needle and thread have been humanity’s constant companions for tens of thousands of years: far longer than the dog, the sword, or the wheel, and much longer than reading an...
Listen
The Language of Thread - Why Sewing Matters and How It Was Taught from 2023-11-02T03:30
Sewing is one of the most vital but also one of the most overlooked human crafts. Every piece of clothing we wear has been put together by someone who has learned to sew. Milli...
Listen
Cabbage and Mungo: How Recycling Returned To Savile Row from 2023-10-05T03:30
There is a quiet revolution happening on Savile Row in London, home to some of the world’s finest men’s outfitters, as the makers of bespoke suits embrace textile recycling in ...
Listen
The People's Art - Material and The Modern Masters from 2023-09-07T03:30
Have you ever wanted a Picasso on your walls – or maybe a Joan Miro, a Chagall, or perhaps a Raoul Dufy? For a time in the mid-50s in America you could buy work by these artist...
Listen
The Tangled Tale of Tartan from 2023-06-01T03:30
Who doesn’t love a good tartan? It is everywhere from high fashion catwalks to shooting parties on winter hillsides, from military uniforms on parade to much-loved old sofas. I...
Listen
A Dance to The Music of Time from 2023-05-04T03:30
This is the tale of how textiles played a central p...
Listen
A Sliver of Deep Blue Cloth from 2023-04-06T03:00
Warning: This podcast and the text below us...
Listen
No Costume? No Carnival! from 2023-03-02T04:30
It’s Carnival season, time to take to the streets for a party and see the spectacle. But Carnival is about so much more than that. At its heart is the idea that with costumes a...
Listen
Is the Needle Mightier Than the Sword? from 2023-02-02T04:30
The little needle is one of the oldest tools in existence. We know that human beings began to use them more than sixty thousand years ago. Needles, and the textiles that came later have changed ...
Listen
Coarse Shifts and Fine Silks from 2023-01-05T04:30
Clothes are a window to our identity – they tell others who we are, what we believe in, and whether we are rich or poor, powerful or powerless. They also tell us a great deal about who someone i...
Listen
Stitches by Candlelight from 2022-12-01T04:30
Mary Queen of Scots is one of the most written about women in history. We think we know her well – but here’s a new account that re-interprets her life from the point of view of the textiles she...
Listen
The Refugees Who Dazzled London from 2022-04-07T03:00
Over the past months, we have watched in horror as nearly ten million people have fled their homes in Ukraine to escape the Russian invasion. They have become the world’s latest refugees. That w...
Listen
Introduction to Season 4 from 2022-03-31T03:00
Welcome to the fourth season of Haptic and Hue’s Tales of Textiles. This season is called Threads of Survival and the eight episodes focus on people who have seen hardship and difficulty, but wh...
Listen
Canada's Forgotten Quilts from 2022-01-27T04:00
Can a nation simply forget an astonishing operation in which its women and children made nearly half a million quilts to comfort the victims of the Second World in Europe? It seems that Canada h...
Listen
What Samplers Tell Us About the Hands That Made Them from 2022-01-13T04:00
Samplers tell stories in stitch, but whose tale are they telling? Perhaps the story of a young woman describing her family and choosing her own patterns and pictures, a child learning her alphab...
Listen
Shoddy: The Once and Future King from 2021-11-18T03:00
There’s a way of producing cloth that has been called 200 years of secrecy and lies. It has played a central role in wars, and slavery. It was the foundation of cheaper clothing and clothes rati...
Listen
Lyon: City of Silk from 2021-11-04T04:30
How do textiles shape a city, and how, in turn, does a city and its people shape and change the world of textiles? This episode looks at what the fabrics created in Lyon, in France, tell us abou...
Listen
African Wax Cloth from 2021-10-21T03:00
African Wax Cloth is having its moment in the sun and it seems to be everywhere, from the catwalks of Paris and New York to the humblest country fabric shop. To the world’s eyes, it is joyful an...
Listen
Whole Cloth From The hills from 2021-10-07T03:00
Textiles can tell us different stories – not just those of the rich and powerful – they have the power to take us beyond that and tell us tales of working people, families living difficult lives...
Listen
Paisley - The Pattern Nomad from 2021-09-23T03:00
Can something belong to us all – just by virtue of the fact that we are human beings? If anything has a claim to that – it is the Paisley motif, which has woven its way in and out of human histo...
Listen
A United Nations of Cloth from 2021-09-09T03:00
In the West of England lies an old house that is a quiet treasure chest of textiles. The man who has built up this astonishing United Nations of cloth is using them to change the way all of us v...
Listen
The Chatter of Cloth - Introduction from 2021-09-02T03:00
Welcome to the third season of Haptic and Hue’s Tales of Textiles. This series is called The Chatter of Cloth and each of the eight episodes starts with a piece of fabric and tracks its...
Listen
A Feeling of Nostalgia from 2021-07-01T01:00
There is one kind of fabric that produces a powerful sense of nostalgia in many of us, and that’s the very democratic cloth that covers the seats and benches of public transport systems around t...
Listen
A Feeling of Belonging from 2021-06-17T01:00
Cloth is more than something useful or beautiful, it can also have enormous power. We are surrounded by fabrics of meaning and belonging, fabrics that tell us who people are and where they come ...
Listen
A Feeling of Wealth from 2021-06-03T02:00
Cloth and wealth have gone hand in glove for much of history: where there are textiles there has almost always been money, and often lots of it. The Medicis of Florence started life as wool trad...
Listen
A Feeling of Sorrow from 2021-05-20T02:00
How cloth helps us grieve.
Sorrow is a universal human experience – whether it’s for a loved family member, for a way of life that once was, or for events that engulf nations and...
Listen
A Feeling of Warmth from 2021-05-06T01:00
Unravelling the journey that fleece takes from the fells to fabric. This episode tracks how greasy wool bred in the wind and rain of a Lake District Farm becomes a smartly tailored jacket, a bea...
Listen
A Feeling of Resilience from 2021-04-22T01:30
On the face of it repairing and reinforcing textiles simply prolongs the life of our clothes and helps minimize textile waste, things worth having – but for many, it also delivers much more than...
Listen
A Feeling of Transformation - Preparation from 2021-04-08T01:30
Is costume design magic or camouflage? The second part of A Feeling of Transformation, looks at the enormous heart and skill that goes into getting costumes right for screen and stage. ...
Listen
A Feeling of Transformation - Performance from 2021-03-25T02:00
Do clothes conceal us or reveal us? Listen to how actors use clothes to make stories believable. Alessandro Nivola and Emily Mortimer, who have played a huge variety of roles between them, from ...
Listen
A Feeling of Comfort from 2021-03-11T01:00
There is nowhere in the world quite like Gees Bend, Alabama with the story of how its quilt-makers were acclaimed as artists, and their work bought by galleries and museums around the world. Nec...
Listen
Introduction Series 2 from 2021-03-04T00:30
Why does touch matter so much to us? What is the connection between cloth and our emotions? This new season of Haptic and Hue's Tales of Textiles explores how we express ourselv...
Listen
Majesty and Mannequins from 2020-12-10T10:00:46
Majesty and Mannequins Episode 7
Catch her out of the corner of your eye as she skitters across the stage of history. She has seen revolutions, war, disaster, pandemics, ...
Listen
Making Men from 2020-11-25T20:12:30
Sewing, mending, knitting and all the fibre skills are seen as 'Women's Work' in Western cultures. But why is this? We hear from men who were taught to sew and knit in wartime, in prison or in i...
Listen
Yarn Yarn Yarn from 2020-11-12T22:39:46
This episode tells the story of the top designer of fabrics to the French fashion industry. It looks at the way in which a modern supplier, competing in a global market, still uses ancient weavi...
Listen
Stitches in Time from 2020-10-29T08:00
The haute couture embroiderers of Paris are amongst Europe’s most celebrated and skilled artisans. This episode looks at the needlewomen who sit behind the seams of the garments we see on the ca...
Listen
A Weaver's Tale from 2020-10-15T06:30
What does it mean to earn your living as a maker? Can you feed yourself? This episode looks at the renowned hand-weaver, Janet Phillips, who has done just that for more than 50 years. It celebra...
Listen
Material Women from 2020-10-01T07:00
The story of the elegant, crisp and artistic textile designs that burst upon the world in the 1950s - the period now known as Mid Century Modern. It looks at the women who created them ...
Listen
Colour is Mine from 2020-09-17T08:40:40
Britain’s first black designer of international standing was a magician of colour. The Queen wore her dress fabrics, cruise liners sailed with her murals on their walls and millions of homes use...
Listen
Introduction to Series One from 2020-09-03T13:00
History is full of the sound of spindles, the clatter of mills and the reek of dye baths as the knowledge of how to make beautiful fabrics has been gathered aroun...
Listen