Dress fabric

Object Type
This fabric is a brocaded silk and was intended for ladies' gowns. The technique of brocading allowed different colours or types of thread to be introduced into the pattern of a fabric in specific, sometimes very small areas. This was of particular importance in silks woven with metal thread, like this, where the gold or silver was too precious to waste on the back of the fabric where it would not be seen. This silk is brocaded with four different types of silver and silver gilt thread, which is now quite worn but would have created a rich glittering effect when intact and untarnished.

Places
Dress silks from France began to dominate fashionable taste across Europe from the 1660s until well into the 18th century. The French textile industry had been regularized by the Minister of Finance, Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-1683), to reduce the variety and improve the quality in each regional weaving centre, so that they did not compete against each other but against foreign imports. Lyon, where this is likely to have been woven, was the centre for the most complex and luxurious of the patterned silks.