The unfolding of effervescent color, variegated texture and spirited dialogue transformed the Fowler Museum’s second floor on Saturday for its annual Textile Council Sale.

Sumptuous fabrics from different regions, eras and cultures surrounded visitors. Hundreds of works lay charmingly and haphazardly stacked across tens of tables. Shoppers could trace the works’ histories through informational tags attached to the globally sourced bowls, figurines, jewelry, sculptures and clothing items that filled the room.

The Textile Council Sale functions as a fundraiser for the Fowler Museum, helmed by one of the museum’s membership programs, the Textile Council. All items are donated by community members.

Some pieces were product replicas of the Kuba peoples of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, others authentic pieces by the Shona peoples of Zimbabwe. The entire mélange had been sourced from different regions of Africa, Asia and Europe.

When describing the wares sold at the Textile Council Sale, Monika Ramnath, assistant director of development at the Fowler Museum, listed wooden carvings from Papua New Guinea and vintage kimonos. These kimonos — silk garments embroidered with images of red-crested, large-beaked birds in flight — adorned stately black mannequins. Lined tables displayed Central and East Asian pottery and painted wooden figures of African origin.

Ramnath said the Textile Council Sale is one way in which the Fowler Museum harnesses both local and global cultures to generate opportunities of education and connection for the Los Angeles community. While the sale celebrates global artistic diversity, the heart of its annual production is centered in the local L.A. area.

“[The Textile Council is] basically a group of people who are really aficionados of textiles from around the world. Many of them are fiber artists themselves and have their own practice,” Ramnath said.

The sale, led by Museum Store Manager Kathy DiGenova, is one of many community events that allow the Fowler Museum to continue its outreach and education programs. While the museum is partially supported by UCLA, the Fowler Museum depends on fundraising for weekly public programs, such as its recent Indigenous People’s Day celebration or special lectures given by artists.

The council aims to develop educational opportunities about textiles for the L.A. community, bringing together people of all ages and backgrounds to learn about fiber art to promote conservation efforts.

That sense of community was palpable at the Textile Council Sale as spectators and shoppers perused racks of traditional African garments, thumbed through stacks of material or handled trinkets like European clown dolls, carefully crafted fruit bowls and tea pots fashioned in the shapes of elephants.

The sale provided visitors the opportunity to engage in dialogue with local vendors and other attendees while connecting with other people, cultures and artistic expressions from all across the globe.

While students, children and community members were in attendance, so were textile experts, including Kristal Hale, a textile conservator at the Conservation Center of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

“A textile embodies somebody’s desire to create something,” Hale said. “When I’m working with a textile, I’m almost reaching back into the past and interacting with another human being, another soul.”

The treasure trove that is the Textile Council Sale provided gems and rare finds even for textile experts like Hale.

“There’s everything from all across the globe — natural fibers, bass fibers, cotton linens, things from Europe, Latin America, Japan, Bolivia, Chinese embroidery,” Hale said.

Thomas Murray, an independent researcher, author and lecturer on textiles, said he had in a previous year picked up a suzani, a rare and carefully embroidered Central Asian textile associated with a bride’s marriage dowry. His stroke of luck occurred when another visitor he met in the check-out line decided not to purchase the silk-and-linen piece.

Murray, an assistant to museum curators, sent the textile to his conservator at The Textile Museum of Washington, D.C. He said a friend working for a textile magazine estimated the suzani to be worth tens of thousands of dollars.

“I flew down from San Francisco this year just for this,” Murray said of this year’s sale. “I didn’t find another suzani, but I had fun.”

Hale said the sale reminds visitors that a sense of community can be found among not only their contemporaries but also figures and culturally meaningful objects from the past.

“[Textiles] are not just a forensic opportunity to understand something… When you really look at a textile, there’s just so much information they embody. And you feel like you really get to know not only a textile but a person,” Hale said.