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Brocade and jacquard – what’s the difference? (or, the history of the jacquard loom, and all the weaves it can create)

A long time ago, when I posted the difference and between muslin, voile, lawn, and batiste (among other fabrics), someone asked if I could explain the difference between brocade and jacquard. I took a deep breath, and say “Yes, but it will take a while.” It certainly has, because it’s actually quite a big question, and there is so much confusion around it!

Left to right: Imperial brocade, tapestry/brocatelle, damask, brocade, damask

A lot of the confusion come from the fact that while the appearance of brocade has stayed very similar throughout history, the method of creating it has changed drastically. Prior to 1801 brocades were woven on hand operated draw-looms by master weavers, who manually created the elaborate brocade patterns as they were woven in with the help of a drawboy, who stood on a perch above the loom. Then, in 1801 Joseph Marie Jacquard demonstrated a new invention (albeit one based partly on a series of inventions from the 1740s-60s) – a loom which ran on cards with holes punched in them. Each card represented one line of a pattern, with the holes allowing threads to pass through into the pattern, changing the colours and creating a design.

Jacquard loom at the Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester, England

The Jacquard loom revolutionised the production of elaborately patterned fabrics. Skilled craftsmen who could read pattern diagrams and manipulate the pattern as it was being woven were no longer needed to weave brocades and other designs, and the Jacquard loom did not require the assistance of an additional drawboy. The new looms could be operated by an unskilled labourer, making richly patterned fabrics faster and cheaper to produce. Jacquard looms were so much easier and cheaper to operate that the old style of looms quickly became obsolete, and within a few decades of Jacquard’s invention almost all elaborate fabrics woven in the West, including brocades, damasks, and richly patterned faux-Kashmiri or ‘Paisley’ shawls, were woven on Jacquard looms.

If the punch cards with holes which create a pattern sounds a little like an early computer – it is. The Jacquard loom and its punch card pattern system is considered an important point in the history of the computer. Babbage and Lovelace (the ‘Father of the Computer’ and world’s first computer programmer and first person to envision a computer that did much more than mathematical calculations (also Byron’s daughter), respectively) were familiar with Jacquards loom, and Babbage intended to use punch cards based on the loom punch cards in his Analytical Engine.

Punch cards in use on a Jacquard loom at the Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester, England

The jacquard loom was further revolutionised in 1843, with the invention of the dobby loom, which makes simpler patterned fabrics by a method of up to 40 frames which lift according to a programme. The dobby loom was even cheaper to run than the Jacquard, and supplanted it for all simpler patterned weaves. Dobby loom patterns, however, are limited to designs that stretch over 40 threads, whereas designs made on a Jacquard loom are virtually limitless. Today jacquard weaves are achieved not with a Jacquard loom, but rather a Jacquard head which is fitted on to a dobby loom.

Almost all modern brocades are woven with a jacquard device, so one could say that all modern brocades are jacquards, but not all jacquards are brocades, because jacquard looms are used to create other weaves, such as brocatelle, damask and tapestry.

Today the name jacquard usually applies to all weaves that can be achieved with the machine, but it is sometimes used to describe one specific type of fabric woven using a Jacquard loom: a light, soft, draping damask weave (see damask weaves below) of silk, rayon or synthetic fibres, which is why descriptions of jacquard as a fabric sometimes say daft things like ‘similar in appearance to damask’.

A rayon damask of the type sometimes called jacquard.

Here are some of the most common weaves achieved on a jacquard loom. Because a jacquard head can produce an almost infinite variety of weaves, there are many fabrics produced with a jacquard loom that don’t fit nicely into one weave category or another, so certain fabrics (particularly brocade & tapestry) can be quite fluid or imprecise in their definition:

Brocade: These days brocade frequently describes the aesthetic of a fabric, rather than a specific weave. Brocades are fabric with an elaborate embossed or embroidered surface effect, usually with different ground and pattern weaves. The name comes from the Italian brocatto, meaning ’embossed cloth’. Unlike damask, brocades are not reversible. Continuous brocades have the weft threads left loose and floating on the back. Some continuous brocades have the back threads cut away, though the short cut ends are still visible. A discontinuous brocade is one where additional yarns are only woven into the patterned areas, resulting in a smoother back.

A continuous brocade with a pattern formed of lame threads that have been cut on the reverse of the fabric.

Mantua, England, 1733-1734 (woven) 1735-1740 (made), Brocaded silk, hand-sewn with spun silk and spun threads, lined with linen, brown paper lining for cuffs, brass, canvas and pleated silk detail, Victoria & Albert Museum

Front and reverse of a silk brocade variant

Brocading: brocade or other jacquard weaves with the inclusion of gold or silver coloured threads. It is also called Imperial Brocade.

A variant of brocade with cut threads on both sides of the fabric, forming voided designs

Front and reverse of an silk/rayon blend imperial brocade

Brocade velvet: a patterned velvet with a raised pile and a woven ground (not to be confused with a burnout velvet, where the patterning is achieved by burning out the pile with acid, rather than weaving in the pattern from the start).

Brocatelle: Similar to brocade, but the patterned areas are more distinct and raised, and the fabric is heavier.

An ottoman in the process of being re-covered in brocatelle

Damask: Patterned fabrics with a ground of one weave (usually plain, twill or sateen) and designs in other weaves (particularly satin and twill variants), so that the patterned areas have sheen and reflect light, Damasks are always reversible, with the pattern weaves becoming the ground weaves on the reverse (so on a fabric with a plain ground and satin pattern front, the ground would be satin and the pattern plain on the reverse). There are tone-on-tone damasks, with different weaves within the damask creating elaborate floral or geometric patterns, and multicoloured damasks, where the background colours and the pattern colours reverse from front to back. My Polly Oliver jacket is made from a red tone-on-tone jacquard damask.

Tea gown with 18th century inspired back pleats, ca. 1905, Callot Soeurs, silk damask, lace, Victoria & Albert Museum

Dyeing fabric for the Mariana Victoria dress thedreamstress.com

The damask for my Mariana Victoria frock

Front and reverse of a rayon damask

Matelasse/Marcella/Pique: a weave specifically designed to imitate quilting with a characteristic bubbled/blistered raised effect.

18th century waistcoat thedreamstress.com

A waistcoat of silk matelasse

Tapestry: In modern terminology ‘tapestry’ just means a fabric woven on a jacquard loom that imitates historical tapestries. It’s a very imprecise term, but it describes a heavy fabric with an elaborate, multicolour weave, usually with the colours reversing on the back of the fabric (for example, a fabric with green leaves on a red ground would have red leaves on a green ground on the reverse), but is thicker, stiffer, and heavier than damask, the reverse may not be as neat and tidy, and is usually woven with thicker yarns than damask or brocade.

Front and reverse of a modern tapestry type fabric

If you are looking at a modern jacquard weave fabric and trying to determine what it is most likely to be called, ask yourself:

– Is it reversible, with the pattern a mirror of each other on each side? If so – it’s a damask. If it’s light and drapey, some people might call it a jacquard.

– Is one side beautiful, and the other side a mess of floating threads? It’s a continuous brocade, unless it’s very heavy, and the pattern is very raised, and then it is a brocatelle.

– Is one side beautiful, and the other a mess of short, cut threads? Its a discontinuous brocade, unless it’s very heavy, and the pattern is very raised, and then it is a brocatelle.

– Is one side beautiful, and the other a pattern of coloured stripes? It’s a type of brocade.

– Is it a brocade with gold and/or silver coloured threads? It’s an imperial brocade/brocade with brocading.

– Is it quite textured, with puffy, blistered areas on the front and a loose, gauzy support weave on the back? It’s a matelasse/marcelle/pique

– Is it really elaborately patterned, quite heavy, and doesn’t fit any of the other descriptions? It’s a tapestry weave.

Jacquard looms can also be used to create elaborately patterned knits, including:

Jacquard hose: socks and stockings with elaborate patterns, such as argyle, herringbone, and other socks with the patterns woven in. Stockings/socks/hose have been knit on jacquard looms since the 1920s, and have gone in and out of popularity since then.

Jacquard sweaters: machine made sweaters with elaborate patterns knitted in. Most ugly Christmas sweaters? Yep. Those are jacquard sweaters. Aztec sweaters – those are jacquard sweaters. Machine knit argyle sweaters are knit on a jacquard loom. Faux Fair Isle and Cowichan sweaters are knit on jacquard looms.

And if you are interested, weaves that are usually done with a dobby loom are birds eye (diaper cloth), crepes, cloche, dotted swiss, double-weaves, honeycomb weaves, simple matelasse/pique patterns, satins, and elaborate twills, as well as fabrics with small, simple widely spaced designs.

Sources:

Cant, Jennifer and Fritz, Anne, Consumer Textiles. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. 1988

Calasibetta, C. M., Tortora, P, and Abling, B (illus.). The Fairchild Dictionary of Fashion (Third Ed). London: Laurence King Publishing Ltd. 2003

Collier, Billie J. and Tortora, Phyllis G. Understanding Textiles (Sixth ed). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall Inc. 2001

Shaeffer, Claire. Claire Shaeffer’s Fabric Sewing Guide. Iola, Wisconsin: Krause Publications. 2008

Wilard, Dana. The Fabric Selector. Millers Point, NSW Australia: Murdoch Books Pty Ltd. 2012

The HSF ’14: Challenge #18: Poetry in Motion

Published by The Dreamstress

The Historical Sew Fortnightly Challenge #18 is Poetry in Motion: bring to life a garment inspired by a song or poem.

Here are few of my favourite poems and songs, and the garments they always make me think of:

The Elizabethan ‘Greensleeves‘ is simply dripping with clothes references, from the titular sleeves (which may have indicated a lack of virtue on the part of the wearer), to the many verses about the gifts that her unlucky suitor brought her:

I bought three kerchers to thy head,
that were wrought fine and gallantly:
I kept thee both boord and bed,
Which cost my purse wel fauouredly.

I bought thee peticotes of the best,
the cloth so fine as might be:
I gaue thee iewels for thy chest,
and all this cost I spent on thee.

Thy smock of silk, both faire and white,
with gold embrodered gorgeously:
Thy peticote of Sendall right:
and thus I bought thee gladly.

Thy smock of gold so crimson red,
with pearles bedecked sumptuously:
The like no other lasses had,
and yet thou wouldst not loue me,

Thy crimson stockings all of silk,
with golde all wrought aboue the knee,
Thy pumps as white as was the milk,
and yet thou wouldst not loue me.

Thy gown was of the grossie green,
thy sleeues of Satten hanging by:
Which made thee be our haruest Queen,
and yet thou wouldst not loue me.

Thy garters fringed with the golde,
And siluer aglets hanging by,
Which made thee blithe for to beholde,
And yet thou wouldst not loue me.

Musicians, Circle of Cornelis van Haarlem 1562-1638

Robert Herrick’s 17th century ‘Upon Julia’s Clothes’

Whenas in silks my Julia goes,
Then, then (methinks) how sweetly flows
That liquefaction of her clothes.

Next, when I cast mine eyes, and see
That brave vibration each way free,
O how that glittering taketh me!

Young Lady by a Fountain, Nicolaes Maes 1664, Bristol Museum and Art Gallery

Alfred, Lord Tennyson beautifully evokes the flower-like appeal of 1850s ballgowns in Maud

Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls,
Come hither, the dances are done,
In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls,
Queen lily and rose in one;
Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls.To the flowers, and be their sun.

Ballgown, silk, 1854-56
(Collection?)

Here is Yate’s 1899 ‘Aedh wishes for the Cloths of Heaven’:

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Ball gown, ca. 1908, American, silk, cotton, glass, metallic thread, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1979.326

And Edna St Vincent Milay’s early 20th century ‘The Plaid Dress’ (which always anachronistically, but obviously, makes me think of mid-19th century plaid dresses in garish aniline dyes!):

Strong sun, that bleach
The curtains of my room, can you not render
Colourless this dress I wear?–
This violent plaid
Of purple angers and red shames; the yellow stripe
Of thin but valid treacheries; the flashy green of kind deeds done
Through indolence high judgments given here in haste;
The recurring checker of the serious breach of taste?

No more uncoloured than unmade,
I fear, can be this garment that I may not doff;
Confession does not strip it off,
To send me homeward eased and bare;

All through the formal, unoffending evening, under the clean
Bright hair,
Lining the subtle gown. . .it is not seen,
But it is there.

Day dress, silk, 1860s, sold at Christies

For more inspiration, there are a number of traditional UK and US folk songs that mention clothes, including the 18th century Mally Leigh and The Wraggle Taggle Gypsies (which mentions finished silk gowns in some versions, and shoes of Spanish leather in others), the early 19th century Jenny Jenkins, and the 19th century or earlier Wedding Dress Song. I’ve already blogged a rather silly, subversive poem about the 20th Century Girl which is full of fun costuming imagery.

And there are hundreds, if not thousands more songs and poems that mention garments, or could be interpreted as a design! Happy creating!

Travels in New Zealand: Swimming holes and sudden hailstorms

Published by The Dreamstress

Today I ran out on a quick errand to the local dairy (like a corner store) and got caught in a hailstorm.

As far as hail goes, the stones were pretty un-impressive, the size of small puy lentils, but the shower lasted a good five minutes, and left the road covered in a reasonable drift of white, and me covered in a reasonable amount of wet, cold and shivering. Luckily home wasn’t far away, because our dairy really is just on the corner of our street!

The experience reminded me of another hailstorm, which I briefly mentioned here on the blog when talking about my West Coast road trip, but never went into in great detail.

Heading back into the mountains from the West Coast, we asked the garrulous proprietress of the cafe we had breakfast at if there was anything we should see on coastal route from Greymouth to Arthur’s Pass. We’d already seen the historic miniature bungalow on our way down the inland route, so were hoping for new excitement on our way back.

The lady at the cafe said to look out for the ‘old bathing pools’ at Kumara, but couldn’t explain more as to what it was. So we drove, and in an otherwise unprepossessing bit of forested roadside just outside of the little town of Kumara we saw a sign for ‘Historic Swimming Baths’ which pointed to a trail leading into the forest.

Fascinating…

It had been raining on and off, but the Chef and I decided we would risk it, and put on our jackets and set off. After a short walk, the forest opened up to reveal this:

Hmmm. A big hole in the ground with stone walls.

I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I’m pretty sure I was hoping for the tumbled-down ruin of some colonnaded classical inspired Bath-esque baths in the middle of the NZ woods. (and yes, there is a big part of me that desperately wants Forgotten Silver to be real!).

So the actually baths were really just a swimming hole. There was a nice sign with their history and some old photographs of the ‘baths’ in their prime:

The baths were a depression-era work project, but not a government sponsored one. Instead, a local man noticed that kids were enjoying the pool formed by a flood, and got the local men to volunteer to build a much better pool. The stones used in the bath were all ‘tailings’ left behind from mining in the area, and the wood was provided by a local mill. The Woman’s Institute raised money for changing rooms for women. It really was a community project, to raise spirits in the area and provide a focus for the community.

Sadly, the baths only lasted a few years, until the huge metal pipes which provided water for them began to rust, and the water was diverted for other uses.

After reading about the history of the baths, the Chef and I decided to walk around them (they are Olympic sized), heading in opposite directions.

She was halfway around the pool, when we heard the most unexpected sound: a train, rumbling through the forest. I was surprised, as I was pretty sure the train lines were all miles away. Then, as the first pellets hit me, I realised that it wasn’t a train: the thundering rumble was the sound of an approaching hailstorm, as the pebbles bounced off the forest.

I spotted a little shelter formed by overhanging trees a few metres ahead along the pool, and raced for it, the Chef doing the same from the other direction.

We huddled under the trees, watching hailstones bounce in all directions. We reached out to collect some of the biggest ones: large cold grapes of ice.

Then the stones became bigger, and one broke through the tree cover and bounced off my head, provoking a loud “Oww!” and the realisation that we needed real shelter – and fast.

We darted back around the pools and onto the path through the woods, grateful for the slight shelter of the trees as the stones became even bigger. Emerging on to the road, we found company: four other cars had taken advantage of our pull off and were waiting out the storm.

Soaking wet, cold, slightly bruised, and laughing hysterically, we piled back into the car and turned the heater on to full blast.

The Chef rummaged around for towels, and we waited out the storm, and then headed up into the mountains, driving slowly and carefully among the drifts of ice.

The baths themselves may not have been the most exciting thing, but the event was!