IngentaConnect Domesticating the Exotic: Floral Culture and the East India Calic...

Author: Lemire, Beverly

Source: Textile: The Journal of Cloth and Culture, Volume 1, Number 1, 1 March 2003 , pp. 64-85(22)

Abstract:

Europe's burgeoning trade in the seventeenth century brought exciting new textiles from Asia to the west, at the same time as newly imported flora caused a frenzy among botanists, collectors, gardeners and speculators. Between 1600 and 1800, gardens were reconceived; at the same time, interior domestic spaces were also being redesigned. Imagined landscapes of exotic locales became the inspiration for a redesign of personal settings using the painted, printed textiles from India. The fervor tied to the romance, mystery and alien landscapes of Asia unleashed a decorative torrent in thread, silk and linen, to bedeck the walls and furnish the homes of elite and common citizens. Asianinspired dress also held a particular fascination for men from the middling to elite ranks, who were beguiled by the decorative banyans or dressing gowns made of printed and painted silks and cottons. They chose to wear these loose flowered robes as they socialized with their most intimate friends and family. Over two centuries, calicos became domesticated, a permanent feature of English domestic furnishings and personal adornment, a symbol of genteel repose, of male informality and intimacy, evolving to become a constant component of western material culture and thereby refashioning the domestic world.

Domesticating the Exotic: Floral Culture and the East India Calico Trade with England, c. 1600-1800