Trade between East and West

 What do we have to remember about the relationship between Britain and India with regards to textiles?

Without Indian textiles, the British textile industry would look very different. In fact, it probably wouldn’t even exist.  200years ago, the most fabulous textiles in the world came from India.

 For example, if i wanted to find cotton, I had to go to India at that time. Also, India had a very important printing process. It is called ‘Chintz’, which means spotted because it is form of printing in multicolour. The Europeans were really jealous of this print technic. It took them 200years to work out how to copy it. I found this very interesting. Following the lecture some questions sprung to my mind.

When visiting the London 'Liberty' department store and talking to people who work there they say that the fabric sold there is “British” but I have always felt differently as the fabrics came across as indicant in design and texture. However after my lecture I now know the history of the British Indian empire and that this style can perhaps legitimately be called “British”.

I went to the Victoria & Albert Museum after the lecture. I could see a direct impact on Indian fabrics. Most of all I could find embroidered fabrics Even the ones with an apparently new design carried the history and techniques of the past..