The Paisley Pattern is well known the world over. Its hallmark teardrop motif, created by the draw looms that also give us Nanjing Brocade, caught the eye of Queen Victoria, while The Beatles helped to encapsulate the design into that era of psychedelia; the 1960s.
Hitherto, the then-unknown Scottish town of Paisley, just outside of Glasgow, was put on the map by an invention made over 1,800 years earlier and 9,000 kilometres away; in China.
Key to our story is the draw loom.
Many would contend that the intricate and beautiful hand-woven designs of the shawl for which Paisley would become infamous originated in India in the 11th century.
The Nanjinger begs to differ.
The key to this argument lies not in archeological sources, but in a Chinese poem. “Rhapsody on Women Weavers” (机妇赋) was written by Wang Yi (王逸) early in the 2nd century.
Its subject was the draw loom, still employed in Nanjing in the production of brocade, and that which gave way to its mechanised (jacquard) version responsible for the Paisley Shawl.
In Rhapsody on Women Weavers, Wang uses metaphor to describe the loom with a tower that needed two people to operate it, as revealed in Maryta M. Laumann’s “The Secret of Excellence in Ancient Chinese Silks” (1984):
Two high–rising figure towers stand there,
Gazing downward (as if) on a clear water pond,
(It appears like) fish catching on to their bait,
(It sounds like) waves splashing rhythmically against the shore.
When the pulleys rise in togetherness
All the fine silk threads move downward.
Reminiscent of (the movements of an astrological map)
With its varied lines some contracting (some) extending
(Thus it goes) One forth one back,
Without ever getting wearied
Wang’s words were further compounded by an exceptional archaeological discovery that was made much more recently, in Tianhui Town of Jinniu District in Chengdu City in July and August of 2013. In the Han Dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE) burial ground at Laoguanshan (老官山) were 620 archaeological finds, stars among which were four looms made of bamboo and wood capable of weaving patterns.
By the time of the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE), the draw loom had been perfected. In the weaving process, silk threads and cotton threads were woven according to patterns that were recorded by means of tying knots.
Here in Nanjing is the only place on Earth where this fascinating traditional craft can be found in action today. At the Nanjing Brocade Institute can be seen that which is at first glance to the casual observer merely a tangle of string. In fact it is a complex code that contains every instruction necessary for the loom to be able to weave the fabric, or put another way, the world’s first piece of programming.
More precisely, the aforementioned tangle of string and the loom for which it is intended has its earliest known technical description in the encyclopaedia “Tian Gong Kaiwu” (天工開物; The Exploitation of the Works of Nature), compiled by Song Yingxing and published in 1637. The illustration of the draw loom therein was just one of thousands of detailed drawings invaluable to historians for their understanding of ancient Chinese production processes.
As the dynasties passed, Chinese brocade became ever more complex, while its dynamic lines, rich colours and designs began also to exhibit reverence for happiness, life and death, marriage, ancestry, nature, heaven and earth. As such, just like the setting sun, the beauty of brocade garments became famous across the world.
Egypt, Syria and Palestine were all early adopters of the loom for creating patterns, likely later in the second century. Then Europe took it to the next level that saw its zenith in the famous Mozac Hunter Silk in Lyon, France. Dated 671 CE, the masterpiece employed one of the most sophisticated technologies of the time, the loom had at least 800 draw cords and 2,700 different combinations of warp threads.
Then the learned Scots enter our narrative. For they and the Chinese were to be the world’s draw loom consummate craftsmen.
The Scottish Enlightenment was a period from the late 18th to the early 19th centuries in Scotland, which saw intellectual and scientific accomplishments emerge en masse. As such, there was a disproportionate contribution from Scottish writers in many fields of study, expertise and vocation.
Among them was the “Practical and Descriptive Essays on the Art of Weaving” by Glasgow textile manufacturer, John Duncan, published in 1808. Therein were brief descriptions of the different types of draw loom in use at the time as well as the principles on which they operated. He was joined by John Murphy, also of Glasgow, who in 1827, published “A Treatise on the Art of Weaving”. Now regarded as one of the classics in weaving literature, the treatise contains that era’s best known description of the draw loom.
All this well placed Paisley to be at the centre of the weaving revolution.
Everything changed for the town as Paisley Pattern designs sprung up all over western Europe. That which began as an imitation of the Kashmir shawl soon became the Louis Vuitton or Prada of their day, a symbol of wealth and status among upper-class women.
When the young Queen Victoria in 1842 was said to have purchased 17 of them, the Paisley Shawl became the de facto fashion garment for discerning ladies everywhere. With the onset of the 1860s, Paisley had no less than 71 shawl manufacturers, churning out not only the stuff of royalty, but also affordable and accessible versions for people across the world.
Bringing our story up to date, in the Year of History, Heritage and Archaeology that was 2017, the Paisley shawls were named as one of 25 objects that shaped Scotland’s history.
Nanjing has a sister city in England in York, but not one in Scotland. There is a powerful case to be made for the twinning of Nanjing and Paisley; as producers of perhaps the most iconic garments ever made, the two would indeed sit comfortably at opposite ends of the axis of global textile trade.
