Dress fabric

Fashionable men and women displayed their taste in the fine fabrics they chose for their clothes. Until the later 17th century most silks were imported. But a silk-weaving industry developed in England, centred around Spitalfields in London, which grew increasingly successful between 1700 and 1760. Huguenot refugee families, contributing technical and business skills, played an integral part in its development.

Spitalfields weavers produced plain and patterned fabrics. Designs changed season by season, influenced by French fashions but developing a distinctive English style.

This fabric, woven in Spitalfields, is a brocaded silk, and was intended for ladies' gowns. The technique of brocading allowed different colours to be introduced into the pattern of a fabric in specific, sometimes very small areas. It was a more laborious process for the weaver than using patterning wefts running from selvedge to selvedge, but the resulting effect could be much more varied and lively. This example also has a self-coloured pattern in the ground, known as a flush pattern, and its plentiful use of silver thread indicates that it would have been relatively expensive.