Reading cloth from 1907, thread by thread.
From a French sample book of 1907 to the shirts we wear today
Open the book, and rows of small fabric samples fill its pages.
At first glance, they look like ordinary stripes. Look closer, though, and you discover flower-like motifs, fine lines that appear as the light changes, and many other thoughtful details.
At PREQUEL, making fabric begins with discovering the ingenuity hidden in these old textiles.
Here, we explore how cloth was made more than a century ago, through a French fabric sample book from 1907.
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A sample book carries the story of cloth.
Compare the fabrics side by side, and you can sense differences not only in colour and pattern, but also in thickness and feel.
How might this sample book have been used in its day?
Was it used to choose cloth for made-to-measure clothing, or by designers selecting fabrics for clothing manufacturers? Simply imagining people opening this book and choosing cloth more than a century ago is exciting.
Look carefully, and you will find handwritten numbers beside the fabrics. Were these numbers used to locate a particular cloth among so many samples?
Each piece of fabric and every handwritten note seems to offer a glimpse of the people who made and used this book.
Reading the structure, front and back.
When a fabric catches our eye, we examine its reverse just as closely.
Cloth is woven by interlacing lengthwise threads, called the warp, with crosswise threads, called the weft.
Which threads appear on the front, and which are hidden on the back? We follow their paths one by one to understand how the fabric was woven.
Warp and weft
In plain weave, the lengthwise and crosswise threads pass over and under one another in an alternating, one-over-one-under pattern.
Thread floats and the character of cloth
A float is a length of thread that passes over several other threads without interlacing. Changing its length changes the fabric's sheen and feel.
Examining the actual cloth helps us check thread thickness and count, details that can be difficult to judge from a photograph. The samples are also more than a century old, so their colours may have changed over time.
Long floats on the surface can give a fabric a beautiful sheen, but they may also make it more prone to snagging.
When designing PREQUEL's original fabrics, we value the beauty of the old cloth while also considering how comfortably it can be worn in everyday life today.
Punched cards select the warp threads.
To weave cloth, some of the lengthwise threads are raised, and the crosswise thread passes through the opening. Which threads are lifted determines the colours and patterns that appear on the surface.
A Jacquard loom uses punched cards to instruct it which warp threads to raise.
The arrangement of holes in the cards allows intricate motifs, including flowers and birds, to be woven repeatedly with precision.
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Two ways to select the threads.
A dobby loom moves groups of warp threads together by raising and lowering the frames through which they are threaded.
A Jacquard loom, by contrast, can select and move warp threads individually, allowing more intricate patterns to be woven.
The distinction is not which loom can weave a more elaborate-looking pattern, but how each mechanism selects and moves the warp threads.
In groups
Threads passing through heddles on the same frame generally move together. By combining the threading arrangement with the order in which the frames are lifted, the loom can create repeating patterns of small squares or diamonds.
One by one
Selecting threads individually makes it easier to create complex patterns. By choosing which warp threads to raise one by one, the mechanism can weave finely shaped motifs such as flowers and birds.
A small, simple pattern does not necessarily mean a fabric was woven on a dobby loom, nor does a large, complex pattern prove it was woven on a Jacquard loom. Appearance alone is not enough to tell.
To understand how a fabric was made, we need to examine exactly how its warp and weft interlace and the conditions under which it was woven.
From close study to a new design.
How can the ingenuity we find in old fabrics inform the clothing we make today?
As we study a fabric's characteristics, we consider its colours, yarns and weave, then begin by weaving a small quantity.
This is a weaving trial.
Once the trial fabric is ready, we check whether the colours match what we imagined, then feel it by hand to assess its softness and texture.
In developing PREQUEL's original fabrics, we also explore new colours that do not appear in the old sample books.
A colour seen in a single yarn can look very different when warp and weft are woven together.
That means we cannot know exactly how the colour will turn out until the cloth has been woven. Seeing the result is always exciting, and always a little nerve-racking.
We then adjust the thread density and the finishing process, bringing the cloth closer to the fabric we have in mind.
Finally, we check the scale of the pattern in a finished garment and how it looks on the collar and sleeves.
From a small piece of cloth more than a century old to a new garment.
This is how PREQUEL's original fabrics come into being.
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07 INTO EVERYDAY LIFE
Bringing the character of cloth into everyday life.
On a flat piece of fabric, a pattern appears neatly arranged.
Once made into a shirt, however, the cloth folds and catches shadows as the body moves. The same pattern takes on a different character.
The following photographs trace the history of textiles, explore sample books more than a century old, and show how PREQUEL works with craftspeople in Japan to develop original fabrics.
A timeline of woven textiles
Here, we introduce historic textiles from different parts of the world in the order in which they were made.
The tools and machines used to weave cloth are called looms.
A loom has a way of selecting which threads move to create a pattern, and a way of supplying the force that drives the weaving, whether by hand or by mechanical power.
Both have developed over time, but the arrival of new technologies did not mean that older ways of weaving disappeared.
Traditional and newer techniques continue to be used in cloth-making today, each bringing its own strengths.
Drawing patterns with coloured threads
Around 1,600 years ago in Egypt, cloth was woven by introducing differently coloured weft threads in the areas where a pattern was wanted. Unlike embroidery, in which a needle adds thread to finished cloth, these patterns are understood to have been created as the fabric was woven.
Creating patterns through interlacing
Silk textiles woven using different sets of threads survive from China around 1,300 years ago. Patterned weaving in China predates the cloth shown here: examples are reported to include brocades made before the Common Era and models of pattern-weaving looms from the Han dynasty.
Weaving cultural patterns into clothing
This garment comes from the Wari culture, which flourished in the Andean region of South America. Its patterns transform figures such as people into lines and angular shapes. It speaks to a textile history that developed in a different part of the world from Europe.
Local skills create sumptuous cloth
This luxurious fabric, known as brocade, has patterns woven in silk and gold and silver threads. It brings together skills in pattern design, yarn dyeing and weaving. Complex fabrics like this were being made long before widespread mechanisation.
Advances in pattern selection and power
During the eighteenth century, ways of weaving repeating patterns developed in Lyon, France. Meanwhile, in Britain, Cartwright patented a power loom, a loom driven by mechanical power, in 1785, helping to pave the way for later mass production. It is understood, however, to have taken considerable time before power looms came into widespread use.
The Jacquard mechanism develops
A system developed that used punched cards to select which warp threads to raise: the Jacquard mechanism. It improved productivity when weaving complex repeating patterns. Through demonstrations and successive refinements, the process is understood to have made fabric production faster.
Dobby: moving threads in groups
The frames that hold heddles through which warp threads pass, allowing them to be raised and lowered together, are called heddle frames. A dobby selects and moves these frames. Its method of selecting threads differs from that of a Jacquard mechanism. Compare the diagrams in “Two ways to select the threads.”
A variety of fabrics, gathered in sample books
As the ways cloth was made and sold changed, sample books brought different fabrics together. They were used to compare cloth, present it to customers and preserve a record.
