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For a brief period between the end of the seventeenth century and the onset of full blown Baroque floral patterning in the early eighteenth century, a strange style known now as "bizarre" was popular in textile design. Particularly seen in woven silks, this style included a variety of juxtaposed motifs of different origins and in different scales: chinoiserie mixing with overlapping geometric patterns; or curves spiralling over monstrously deformed fruit. This man's sleeved waistcoat from about 1710 is the only major piece of costume in the Gallery's collections made from this type of bizarre silk. The design of the brocade in coloured silks and metal threads, shows tentacles, stylised leaves and clouds, and strangely ornamented diagonal shading. The impression created is of stylistic experimentation which is seemingly modern and timeless in appearance. Indeed, these silks are one of the mysteries of the eighteenth century.

From this period, up until the middle of nineteenth century, woven silk brocades for women's dresses or men's waistcoats usually originated in the large manufacturing centre in Spitalfields in London, although they were also imported from France. Silks were produced on handlooms in cottage-style industries until the early nineteenth century, as demonstrated, below, in the print of the weaver first published around 1815.

Full item descriptions:

"waistcoat, sleeved" [1961.275]
"The Book of English Trades" [TBA 5], Sir Richard Phillips & Co

Related Themes:

Waistcoats
18th Century Men's Fashion