THE FLOWERING OF THE SHAWL: From the gardens of Kashmir to the drawing rooms of Jane Austen’s England with Susan Scollay

At the turn of the 19th century fashionable European women began to wear luxurious cashmere shawls imported from Mughal India. At first in France, then in England, these prestigious and exotic garments became so popular that local manufacturers began to make imitation Indian shawls in an effort to meet growing demand.

As Jane Austen’s novels attest, by the 1820s women from all walks of life were wearing some version of the shawl in the Indian Style. A few manufacturing centres such as the small town of Paisley in Scotland successfully marketed their shawls right through to the later years of the century when fashions changed and demand came to a sudden end.

SUSAN SCOLLAY is an internationally recognised specialist in textiles and carpets, and Islamic art and culture. She is contributing editor of HALI, the London-based journal of carpet, textile and Islamic art, and is currently completing a PhD at La Trobe University, Melbourne. Scollay was guest curator of Fluid Borders: Ways of Seeing Oriental Rugs, and convenor of the accompanying Carpet Study Day, both held at The Johnston Collection in 2010.