Ms Bessie Cecil, UK Visiting Fellow (2006-07), while Research Scholar, Government Museum, Chennai, to study original volumes of the Textile Manufactures of India by John Forbes Watson, and examples of Kodali Karuppur textiles from South India in the UK for comparison with those in Chennai.
Professor Dr. Bessie Cecil is now Professor at IICD-Indian Institute of Crafts and Design, Jaipur.
An alumna of the College of Arts and Crafts, Chennai, she holds a PhD. in Textile Design and Conservation from the Government Museum, Chennai, affiliated with the University of Madras.
She has worked for over two decades in the field of Indian textiles and crafts, focusing on research, documentation, conservation, and curation. Her work has been enriched by a series of prestigious fellowships, including the Nehru UK Visiting Fellowship at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the Fulbright Doctoral Fellowship at Florida State University, USA; the Charles Wallace India Trust Fellowship; and a Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship at the Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore.
Her research interests include historic textiles, natural dyes, handmade zari, indigenous cotton, Khadi, and endangered weaving traditions. She has curated exhibitions such as Batik Sutra: Tagore, Travel and Textiles, Colours of Nature, and Back to Khadi: A Journey, and has served on expert committees and juries, including the GI Registry, NIFT doctoral committees, and National Award selection panels.
Her recent publication, A Journey with Khadi, is a limited-edition incorporating fabric swatches to document and preserve India’s textile heritage through tactile and material understanding of cloth.