THE PAISLEY SHAWL.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17246, 12 January 1924, Page 17

THE PAISLEY SHAWL.

A LOST INDUSTRY. This collection of Paisley shawls has an admirable setting. It is in Provand’s Lordship (note its delightful name), the oldest house in Glasgow, writes Mrs F. A. Douglas in the London ’■ Star.' 1 This queer, grim, little dark stene building, with its deep slit windows and big stone fireplaces, is the only remaining portion of St Nicholas's Hospital. Across the road is the fine old cathedral; down the way, the gloomycity gaol, ar.d aloft through the misty Glasgow- rain you see where John Knox's statue presides over the citv. One man has collected these shawls. He has hung them round the ancient wails and put the precious ones in glass-cases with electric lights, gloving like jewels between them, to reveal their colours They are tended by quaint ladies in ictorian gowns—crinolines and flounced silks, if you please—with lovely shawls about their shoulders, mittens on thtir hands, and pokebonnets. from which ringlets emerge, upon their heads The manufacture of these shawls dates from the Napoleonic wars, when British soldiers, returning from Egypt, brought with them Indian and Turkish shawls of great artistic beautv Tee Paisley weavers, always clever craftsmen. set to work to copy them, and from the dingy little town there began to come wares rich :n Eastern beauty. The clever man who has collected these shawls shows how through them all the same symbols run. There is the “ tree of life.” that sometimes grows “ up and up " into great and boid designs, and iometimes is truncated into a little spade-like emblem; the lotus flower of the East: long graceful peacock's feathers. and the pine or cone which tomes from Chaldea, a religious symbol said to b taken from the fruit of .he date palm The majority of these shawls are voven. with an infinity of threads nd pains, but seme are .oeedlo-sewn, _nd many .have needle-sewn-borders.

] There are lovely silk and gauze ones, I but the majority are wool—just line ! wool of wondrous n armth and softnessThe colouring is all Eastern, very soft, exquisitely blended. No aniline dyes are here; all soft vegetables and herbal dyes. There are no garish reds or blues, yet the effect is of incomparable richness, as one may see by the replicas of the shawls sent as wedding gifts to Queen Alexandra and Queen Mary. The industry lasted from 1800 to 1870. Or.ce there were 7000 looms and weavers in Paisley weaving shawls: now there are few handlooms at all, and none weaving shawls. It is a forgotten art. But the shawls endure. Everybody's mother or grandmother in Scotland has one. Now they are being eagerly sought after to be transformed into cloaks and mantles.