- Collection type
- Object
- Description
- Woman's stole to be worn with cloth 2008.54.10 .1 [MdeA 11/09/2008]
- Long description
- The stole is made from a single strip of warp faced weave textile, predominantly bright yellow / orange in colour. The textile is decorated with green stripes of different widths. There are two broad green stripes approximately 29 mm wide and four narrower green stripes 10 mm wide. These six stripes are edged with thin white stripes and are decorated with a length of supplementary weft designs worked in silver yarn at five points along each of these stripes. The selvages are orange / yellow with two narrow green stripes very close to each selvage. The warp threads have been left long, twisted together and knotted at the end to form a fringe at both ends of the cloth. [MdeA 11/09/2008]
- Cultural groups
- Lotha Naga
- Date / Period
- Date made: Before 10/2006-11/2006
- Date collected
- October - November 2006
- Acquisition information
- Acquired: 14/05/2007 Acquired: 2008
- Materials and processes
- Material Synthetic Textile, Material Synthetic Yarn, Process Woven
- Dimensions
- Width: max 389 mm, Length: max 1675 mm excluding fringe, approx
- Object numbers
- Accession number: 2008.54.10.2
- Research and responses
This skirt and stole were viewed during a virtual interview with the designer Mrs Abeni TCK Lotha, organised by the Talking Threads project on 27th July 2021. She described how the inspiration for the konken-sü came from the famous oranges of Wokha, Nagaland. The orange colour represents the fruit, the green represents the leaves, and the white represents the blossom. The Lotha Naga community have recognised the konken-sü as an official Lotha woman's cloth, and it has become very well-known.
When asked about her use of bright colours and metallic threads, Mrs Abeni discussed her fascination with fashion, garments worn by royalty, and Indian sarees, where much of her inspiration comes from: "My passion for weaving bright colours has somehow become like my signature trademark I suppose. It explains my love of bold colours that state and express my confidence and joy. Metallic threads – my designs were inspired I have said by embroideries, mostly from Indian sarees, I was motivated to make a line of evening wear with metallic and bold coloured threads for the Naga women that wanted to dress exclusively for the evening and important social occasions."
For the Zoom recording and the full transcript of the meeting please see the Talking Threads project file.
- Associated publications
- Object: Oying Motsü The Story of Our Threads a memoir by Abeni TCK, Main author: Abeni TCK; Editor: Khyochano TCK; Thompson Press India, 2025, Page: 49, Page illustrated: 49
2008.54.10.2
Woman's stole to be worn with cloth 2008.54.10 .1 [MdeA 11/09/2008]
2008.54.10.2
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