How did kashmiri shawls transform global fashion?

Kashmir shawls signified status for royalty and aristocrats across South and West Asia from the 16th century onward. As with other Indian regional textile industries, the Kashmir shawl industry under the Mughals was state controlled and served local and foreign markets. A 17th-century Mughal patka fragment from the al-Sabah Collection, featuring naturalistic orange daylilies, is a rare early example in pashm (3). The waist sash, or patka, was a prominent element of Indian male courtly dress, indicating status, sophistication and wealth, and opulent patkas were gifted by rulers to favoured courtiers.

Kashmir kani textiles were also highly regarded at the Iranian courts. Dancer, an oil painting by renowned Iranian artist Muhammad Baqir (17405-1800), presents a lavishly attired court dancer wearing a red patka with large boteh, the teardrop-shaped motif characteristic of Kashmir shawls, at her waist (5). This style of boteh, composed of individual floral elements, was previously thought to have developed in the first quarter of the 19th century. Housed in the Museum of Fine Arts, the painting, with its dated inscription AH 1192/1778-79, was pivotal to Frank Ames's 2005 article in HALI 139, which revised previous dating of the emergence of the curvilinear botch, placing it in the late 18th century. It underscored the importance of Iranian tastes in the development of Kashmir shawl designs.

The enduring style of boteh motif seen in Dancer can be observed on a handsome 19th-century ruby-coloured Kashmir shawl displayed nearby in the exhibition (1). This type of shawl is seen in numerous portraits of the French Empress Josephine, underscoring the shared tastes between Asian and European courts. During his invasion of Egypt in 1798-1801, Napoleon Bonaparte sent Kashmir shawls back to France, where Josephine's royal status as a fashion icon played a crucial role in the restoration of French luxury industries in the post-revolutionary period. In Lyon, the programmable loom developed by Joseph-Marie Jacquard (1752-1834) mechanised Kashmir shawl designs, marking a pivotal moment in the history of industrial technology.

Known as buta in Hindi, botch in Persian and paisley in English, this iconic motif is thought to derive from flowering shrubs, cypresses, mangos or pinecones. These forms grace shawls worn as mantles as well as wool and silk clothing material that was tailored into garments of all types. The early motif of a single flowering sprig, such as those on the patka fragment, also appeared in small, repeated patterns on clothing fabric.

The floral form eventually developed into the enclosed teardrop shape containing small flowers, seen in Baqir's painting. From the MFAH collection, a doshalla, literally, 'two shawls', has a tall buta form with a gracefully curved tip balanced by the small garland at the top right, characteristic of the first half of the 19th century. An 1870s vibrant dorukha, or 'double-faced' shawl, identical on either side, exemplifies Kashmiri weaving virtuosity. The complex woven patterns are defined on both sides with stem-stitched outlines, and the field of the shawl is further embellished with embroidered kunj buta, or corner buta, resembling sarpech, or turban ornaments (4).

Floral textiles often were paired with striped textiles known as khatrast, literally, 'straight line', also produced using the kani twill-tapestry weave. In India and Iran, khatrast textiles were used by women and men for robes, jackets and trousers, as represented in a portrait of Qajar Iranian ruler Nasir al-din Shah (r. 1848-1896) by Muhammad Isfahani, and a portrait of Qajar official Husayn "Ali Khan by Abu'l Hasan Ghaffari (1814-66)(6), both from the Nasrin and Abolala Soudavar collection, as well as on the sleeves of Baqir's Dancer(s).

Featured in the exhibition is a rare, early 19th-century square shawl from the Banoo and Jeevak Parpia Collection (2). Known as a moon shawl, or chand-dar, for its central moon-like medallion, this shawl is filled with an overall pattern of diamond shapes, representing a striking departure from the floriated designs typically found on moon shawls. Moon shawls were first produced in mid-18th-century Kashmir and worn by men as turbans and waist sashes. From the late 18th century until the 1820s, European women wore larger versions as shawls, as illustrated in contemporary French fashion plates.

Displayed adjacent in the gallery is another type of square shawl, the so-called patchwork or mosaic rumal. This gained popularity in the 1860s with the emergence of new dress silhouettes with voluminous bustles, as seen in a painting by high-society portraitist Alfred Stevens (1823-1906) (7). This rumal, on special loan to the museum from a private collection, was stitched together from several separately woven pieces by a darner, or rafugar, and represents a later phase in Kashmir shawl production for the European market. Although embroidery (amli) had long been used in Kashmir to embellish and reinforce shawls and was brought to a high degree of technical refinement in the dorukha shawl, the patchwork shawl was developed as a time- and cost-saving alternative to weaving such complex patterns in one piece on the loom.

The 1804 invention of the Jacquard loom attachment automated the weaving process through a punch-card system, enabling the massproduction of large, intricately patterned shawls. Most jacquard-woven shawls were produced with local sheep's wool, making them a costeffective alternative to handwoven Kashmiri imports.

A major contribution of the exhibition is the identification of the signature of Antony Berrus on a magnificent shawl in the MFAH collection (8). Berrus (1815-1883) was the director and designer of one of the most successful Parisian ateliers renowned for châles vegetals, luxuriant floral shawl designs characterised by imaginative, undulating compositions of butas, flowering branches, ferns and various vegetal motifs. This is one of few shawls attributed to Berrus to carry his signature.

The Berrus shawl also reveals a fascinating history of shared collecting practices between Europe and North America. It belonged to Augusta Kruse Kohrs (1849-1945), who emigrated from Hamburg to the United States. She married Conrad Kohrs (1835-1920), a fellow German immigrant, who established the largest open-range cattle operation in North America in Montana. Gifted to the museum by her great-grandson, David B. Warren, former director of the MFAH Bayou Bend House Muscum, the Berrus shawl offers a glimpse into the life of Mrs Kohrs, who was known for her fondness for de luxe fabrics.

American shawl fashions closely followed European trends, as documented in illustrated periodicals like Godey's Lady's Book (1830-98). Mrs Kohrs took extensive buying trips to New York and Europe, where she may have bought the museum's shawl. The Kohrs family also attended World's Fairs, including the 1876 American Centennial exhibition in Philadelphia, where European shawls were displayed.

Kashmir shawls were some of the earliest textiles to enter the museum collections, gifted nearly a century ago by Miss Annette Finnigan (1873-1940), a Texas businesswoman, suffragette, philanthropist and avid traveller, who donated more than 300 artworks from around the world. On a journey to India in 1933, she acquired some of the Kashmir shawls featured in this exhibition along with silk garments and brocaded covers. Her donations of Indian, Turkish, and Persian textiles arrived some seventy years before the establishment of the Art of the Islamic Worlds initiative.

As museums across the United States mark the 250th anniversary of America's founding, it is also an opportunity to shed light on lesser-known late 19th- and early 20th-century women who collected extraordinary Kashmir shawls. From Persia to Paisley' shares some of the multifaceted stories of these exceptional textiles from their development as royal attire under the Mughals to emblematic Iranian courtly dress, to their transformation in Europe as indispensable accessories for ladies' fashions, and to their trans-Atlantic adoption as symbols of high sophistication.