Indian shawls in nineteenth-century Britain: A fashionable proposition?

Abstract

Kashmiri shawls were valued dress accessories in nineteenth-century Britain. What came to be known as ‘Paisley’ shawls were their affordable imitations manufactured in centres in Edinburgh, Norwich and Paisley. Oriental shawls and their patterns have been examined painstakingly by textile scholars and art historians; cultural critics, however, have yet to outline their colonial and postcolonial significance. This article provides a view of how shawls from India were customised and represented in British popular discourse. Interestingly, what had been largely masculine accessories in the subcontinent at the time were reinvented in Britain and Europe as articles of feminine fashion. It is argued that the distinction between original and imitation Kashmiri shawls transpired as an important marker of class in British society. In addition, despite their easy and fashionable veneer, the representation of oriental shawls at the time sometimes recalled and referred to the ideologies of the empire. Rendering a new importance to fashion and material culture in postcolonial research, I conclude that although shawls have been studied as a chapter in fashion history, their broader relevance to relations of class and imperialism, visible so often in British cultural texts, needs to be recognised.