Connecting Threads: Digitally Connecting Collections, Expanding Public Engagement

Connecting Threads is a born-digital project exploring eighteenth-and nineteenth-century fashions for Indian and Indian-imitation textiles in African diasporic communities of the Greater Caribbean Region. Knitting together material from five UK and US collections - the Victoria and Albert Museum, the University of Glasgow Archives and Special Collections, the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, the Bristol Archives, and the Louisiana State Museum - the project aims to reorient global histories of textiles and dress from Euro-centric narratives towards the influence of Indo-Caribbean fashion exchange on global tastes and trade. In so doing, the project foregrounds the contributions of communities of colour to global fashion history and promotes the wider decolonisation of the humanities. Project outcomes include a two-day study event, learning and teaching resources, and a bespoke website offering public access to project research and findings via a custom linked-open-database, a digital exhibition and interpretative essays.