You probably recognise this tear drop motif, correctly known
as boteh
inspired by the territories which bordered Kashmir. This pattern developed from
a vase or bunch of flowers with tightly packed heads bending at the top, into
the familiar decorated pinecone shape.
Nowadays, we call this highly decorated tear
drop pattern Paisley, the name of the Scottish town which used the design to
decorate its shawls in the early nineteenth century. However, Paisley wasn’t
the first British town to produce shawls decorated in this way.
Norwich had
been using a similar pattern on the borders of their shawls since the late
eighteenth century and by the nineteenth century, there were at least twenty
shawl manufacturers in the town.
In India, each shawl needed the fine wool of 27 goats – but the
Norwich weavers, with long experience of working with fine quality, lightweight
fabrics, developed a combination of silk and sheep’s wool which was soft, warm
and strong. The development of the Jacquard loom with its perforated pattern
cards, allowed ever more complex patterns to emerge, which eventually covered
most of the shawl rather than stopping at the borders.
In the first half of the nineteenth century, Norwich
manufacturers were dismayed by other towns, like Paisley, copying their
patterns and flooding the market. In 1842, it became possible to register a
design at the Public Records Office for one shilling. However, this protection
was only valid for between six and twelve months so only a few companies took
the opportunity of protecting their patterns against piracy in this way.
The finest Norwich shawls were woven between 1830 and 1860,
and in 1850, printed shawls came onto the market.
Many Norwich shawls were dyed
with a colour identified as Norwich Red. These shawls, designed to cover
crinolines, were over six feet square, or a twelve foot rectangle, filled with
boteh sometimes five feet in length, filled with flowers and covering the whole
shawl. Some Norwich shawls were displayed at The Great Exhibition of 1851 and Queen
Victoria ordered some for herself.
The leading expert in this country on the Norwich Shawl is a delightful 92 year old lady called Helen Hoyte – who received an MBE a year ago for her work in preserving and documenting these lovely garments. [watch the first 90 seconds of this video]
In October, there
will be a special exhibition in Norwich Cathedral celebrating Norwich Shawls. I
am planning to visit when we are up at Cornerstones that month. But I shall say more about this next week!
So beautiful, I will try to visit the exhibition later in the year when I visit my son who has just bought a house near Norwich. I remember that paisley designs were very popular in the 60's when I was a teenager and I made a dress using some paisley fabric, my needlework teacher told me that it would be difficult to match up and she was right !
ReplyDeleteI don't really like the Paisley pattern and thought it came from Paisley. Thank you for sharing this interesting post about the history of the Paisley pattern. I will always look at it differenly now.
ReplyDeleteCarolx