Leila Lois for Textile Message
For ‘EWF X Textile Message‘ as part of the 2025 Emerging Writers’ Festival.
Beauty is not merely decorative. -Ocean Vuong
Early memories of textile as solace and comfort
Since as early as I can remember, textiles provoked feelings of comfort, wonderment and inspiration within me. Like most children, I had a ‘comfort blanket’, a cotton pillow, printed with meadow flowers. I would take each smooth, cold corner between my little finger and ring finger until I drifted to sleep.
Until my teenage years, I cannot remember living in the same house for longer than a year or so, as we relocated for my parents’ careers as a psychiatrist and a professor regularly. Then following that, the divorce. My ‘blankie’ came with me across continents and oceans, as we relocated from Aotearoa (New Zealand) to the UK. My brother also had a cream lamb’s wool counterpart. They of course swathed us with solace in every airport, motel and new home as we were in transit, moving house and visiting our family overseas.
Other early memories of the intimacy of textiles include summers where I visited my Kurdish grandparents on the East coast of the United States, each time coming home with my suitcase a riot of brightly coloured and heavily sequined silk dresses, hand-sewn by my Dapir (grandmother).
In Kurdish sartorial culture, more is more. These dresses were highly contrasting with my British school uniforms and weekend dungarees and crop tops. I was at once frightened and fascinated with the exuberance of the dresses. I wore them for photos for my grandparents but that was about the only time they had occasion to emerge, other than dress up time on playdates.
Kurdish dresses: haunting and reclaiming
Sadly, and somewhat inevitably, growing up so far away from my Kurdish relatives and in predominantly white suburbia, these extravagantly beautiful dresses were relegated to analogue photos stashed away at my grandparents’ house and the dress-up box, eventually to go missing in one of our many moves. Or perhaps I gave them away to the opportunity shop…either way it pains me to think how little I treasured these beautiful articles of ancestry, these acts of love.
Seven years ago, moving to Naarm/ Melbourne from Aotearoa, I decided to hand-sew my own Kurdish dress. I had no pattern and used sequined silk from a Korean fabric seller on Sydney Rd. I had no idea what I was doing but the process was intuitive and healing. I’ve since worn this dress to exhibition openings, poetry readings and dance performances. I will never again let myself think that these dresses are ‘too much’. Like a Medieval gown with sweeping sleeves, I can be whatever sort of ancient princess I want to in these dresses and celebrate both my ancestral cultures (Welsh and Kurdish).
Ballet: tulle and stretch dreams
Ballet has been a lifelong love affair for me. From ballet class in chilly church halls as a child to performances and now teaching, my eyes light up and my heart lifts at the sight and touch of tulle, lace, tights and leotards. Like Kurdish dresses, more is more; you can never have tutu much tulle! Ballet being replete with narrative, mime and fantastical sets; I always enjoy researching the beautiful costumes of ballet.
From Léon Bakst’s bohemian creations for the Ballet Russes to Chanel’s collaboration with the Australian Ballet, I just love seeing how form and flow can come together in the most exquisite ways through dance costumes. As well as making my own lingerie and ballet skirts, I’ve modelled for several friend’s clothing businesses and always prefer clothes I can dance and do the splits all ways in, with comfort and finesse. That is my test for a garment. Can I dance in this? Can I be joyful in this? Can I feel myself? Can I express who I am? It hasn’t always been this way, I struggled with body image and an eating disorder as a teen, and hence the commitment to loving myself garnished and ungarnished now, my ancestries, the skin and textile I live in.
I hope that everyone is able to access joy and self-love through their chosen clothing.
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