Soumak

Carpets have been woven at Wilton in Wiltshire since the seventeenth century, and the first carpet-weaving factory in England was built there in 1655. The industry proper dates from 1741, when Henry Herbert, 9th Earl of Pembroke, brought in two French weavers to teach the trade locally and the first Wilton loom was patented; the town gave its name to the Wilton carpet, a cut-pile carpet woven on the wire principle.

Woodward & Lothrop was Washington's first department store, and for most of a century its largest. Samuel Walter Woodward and Alvin Mason Lothrop opened a dry-goods business at Chelsea, Massachusetts, in 1873 and moved it to Washington in 1880; the store that grew from it anchored the city's downtown shopping district, absorbed the Palais Royal, and was known to everyone as Woodies. It filed for bankruptcy in 1994 and was wound up the following year.

The prestigious French design firm “Décoration Intérieure Moderne (DIM)” was founded just after World War I by Joubert and Mouveau with the objective of designing and manufacturing furniture and decorations.  Individually or together, René Joubert, both an architect and a cabinetmaker, Georges Mouveau, a stage designer, and, starting in 1924, Philippe Petit produced standard “DIM” furniture.  The pieces, in oak or walnut, are noted for their clean lines, plain style and sturdy look.

Barbro Sprinchorn (1929-1973) was a Swedish textile artist who worked in flatweave, embroidery and appliqué. Born in Sundsvall, she moved to Stockholm and trained at Konstfackskolan between 1948 and 1955, first as a drawing instructor and then through the school's advanced textile course.