The Kasthuri Sreenivasan Trust’s Textile Museum in its Culture Centre on Avinashi Road – National Highway 47 is truly one of its kind in India.  Set up by the Founder Trustee of the Kasthuri Sreenivasan Trust – Padma Bhushan Kasthuri Sreenivasan, it seems inspired by the many textile museums in Europe and United States, which are mostly devoted to a single aspect of textile such as clothing, fashion, design, technology or garments.  Though the inspiration could be from them, this museum strives to be different by attempting to give a comprehensive and multi faceted picture of the development of textiles.

Seven rooms are dedicated for the displays.  The first three rooms – 11, 12 and 13 on the ground floor, trace the history of textile technology from the whorl wheels of Egypt and the spinning wheels of Mohenjodaro. The growth and development of spinning and weaving is exhibited in these rooms through the charts, models and even actual machines.  Exhibited in their chronological sequence, they help the visitor understand the history of textile technology from prehistoric days to the early stages of the Industrial Revolution.  Some of the items of interest in this section are the Saxon spinning wheel, which dates back to 1530 AD and makes use of a foot pedal to impart motion to the wheel, thus leaving both hands free.  Also on display is a 1,000-year-old fabric from a Nigerian cave.An automated version of the traditional spinning wheel – the Mule and the Memorandum of articles of association of the first mill in Coimbatore are also exhibited.  Room 13 has on display the different systems of yarn formation that have been developed in recent years and the yarn characteristics of each system shown in the form of models.  Antique sarees, other textile products and artefacts are on display in Room 14, courtesy the Craft Council of Tamil Nadu, Coimbatore.

The history of costumes in India, right from the times of Mohenjodaro to the 19^th century, find place in rooms 15 and 16.  Information on this we learnt was culled from the sculpture of various periods as the costumes from the past had not survived the ravages of time.  Products of unusual types of fabric formation like crochet and pillow lace are shown in Room 15.  The use of unusual fibre like banana fibre, pineapple fibre, screw pine and ramie are highlighted in the same room.  A piece of hand spun and hand woven fine Muslin made from 400s metric count is a rare exhibit in this section.  A kilogram of this yarn we were told would stretch to 400 kilometres.  In Room 16 the highlight is the exquisite Japanese bridal dress.

In the last room, various types of handlooms from various parts of India, as well as sketches of various types of handlooms used by American Indians are on display.  The highlights in this room are six paintings on mica, painted in the 17^th century.  They depict handloom operations in India.  Originally these paintings were taken by the East India Company to England to show customers, and were brought back by the Founder-Trustee, Kasthuri Sreenivasan.  There are also some sarees of ancient design produced for the Festival of India and displayed, courtesy of the Ministry of Textiles.

What was striking was the simple, but systematic manner in which the layout of the whole museum had been planned. The Textile Museum, we should say, succeeded not only in providing knowledge regarding the growth of textiles from a technical and aesthetic point of view, but also in evoking in us a feeling of pride in the rich heritage of Indian textiles.

Address: Kasthuri Sreenivasan Trust – Textile Museum, Avinashi Road – National Highway 47, Coimbatore 641 014.
Phone:  574110.