The Tea Towel: Perspectives on an Everyday Item

The Swiss publisher is reprinting this book. The US distributor tells us any copies ordered now will not arrive until September.

Conceived by three Swiss editors as an inquiry into textile design and domestic culture, The Tea Towel: Perspectives on an Everyday Item expands far beyond its modest subject. Compact in format at 4¾ by 7⅜ inches yet extending over 300 pages, the book combines essays, visual studies, and technical examinations, with display type inspired by monograms once embroidered onto household linens, including a napkin dating to around 1920.

Contributors include weavers, a tapestry designer, a bookbinder, an art historian, and a historian of European colonialism. Together they explore the object from multiple angles:

• The evolution of table linens during the height of European colonial expansion

• A meditation on the tea towel’s continued usefulness in the age of mechanized cleaning

• A photo essay documenting methods of folding and storing towels

• A survey of how towels appear in painting and other visual arts

• An examination of weaving techniques, from hand production to industrial manufacture

Niche in focus but unexpectedly wide in scope, this is a thoughtful anthology for readers interested in material culture, textile history, and the layered meanings embedded in everyday objects.

Paperback. Color photographs and illustrations throughout.