Paisley, Scotland’s Nineteenth-Century Shawl Designers: Innovators or Imitators?

Abstract

Facilitated by increased trade between Asia and Europe, handloom-woven shawls from the Kashmir region of the Indian subcontinent became desirable clothing for Europeans connected with trade in India during the mid-eighteenth century. By the 1780s, European manufacturers had picked up on this trend, producing textiles which imitated Asian patterns but sold at lower prices to meet a wider market. Kashmiri shawls and their imitations were ubiquitous in Britain by the mid-nineteenth century and were particularly favoured by women as an outer layer of clothing. This PhD thesis investigates the imitation Kashmiri shawl industry of one of the most renowned and prominent European producers – the town of Paisley, Scotland – to assess the artistic innovation of local shawl designers between 1805 to 1870. Having initiated production in 1805 – years later than its British competitors in Edinburgh and Norwich – by the mid-nineteenth century Paisley’s name was synonymous in much of the Anglophone world with the teardrop-shaped floral motif that was iconic of the Kashmiri shawl. However, during the 1830s manufacturers in Norwich and Edinburgh vocally complained of Paisley designers ‘pirating’ their work. These accusations encouraged more rigorous intellectual property laws, as well as the nationwide establishment of government-subsidised schools of design during the 1830s and 1840s. It was hoped that the Paisley Government School of Design (founded in 1848) would train local designers to create original, quality patterns. Tracing the oft-intertwining effects of globalisation, industrialisation, and national design reform upon the role of designers in nineteenth-century British textile industries, I examine Paisley manufacturers’ leading role in producing imitation Kashmiri shawls by asking several fundamental questions: What kind of design culture existed in Paisley? Did Paisley’s shawl designers bring any innovation to the visuality and materiality of the imitation Kashmiri shawl? How much did European shawl designers (including those in Paisley) rely on the patterns of their competitors, including South Asian patterns, to produce their own work? And did the Government Schools of Design improve the quality and originality of patterns in the shawl industry? Resolving each of these questions will clarify whether design innovation was a factor in Paisley’s economic success.