Mood Board: Indian Influence on English Style, 19th Century

Sunday, November 19, 2017

Mood Board: Indian Influence on English Style, 19th Century

[Class Project!]
The following are visual references related to the VAM's Style Guide: Influence of India.

Kashmir and Paisley

When discussing Indian influence on English dress, the Kashmir shawl is an obvious starting point. These handwoven shawls, with their dazzling colors and vivid patterns, were in demand in Europe and North America over most of the nineteenth century; they spawned derivative industries in France and Scotland, where mechanical jacquard looms and modern fabric printing technology made cheaper shawls available to a wide variety of people. Even the term "paisley", used to denote the shawls and their pine cone or leaf-like boteh/bota motif, comes from the Scottish manufacturing town of Paisley. This "paisley" pattern found its way onto dress goods, and even embroidery designs. The popularity of the motifs and style outlasted that of the shawl as a garment, with some early- and mid-century cashmere shawls cut and sewn into fashionable mantles and gowns at the end of the century.

Other Indian styles and decorative elements, while noteworthy, did not have the same wide impact on English dress as the Kashmir shawl. The banyan--worn for gentlemen's undress, like the powdering gown and smoking jacket--in an unusual example of a style of Indian garment being adopted, rather than the decorative motifs being appropriated and applied to English dress. As an example of the opposite, the final piece is an English-style evening gown which had been trimmed with a particularly Indian style of embroidery, incorporating thousands of iridescent eyltra beetle-wings.

Shawls