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We’ve just acquired a beautiful collection of viscose textiles from a fashion designer that was working in Paris at an Houte Couture house in the early 1900s. Please see below for a fascinating history about viscose!
COTTON VISCOSE
This golden fabric is a blend of cotton and viscose and would have been in a book of fabric samples for designers to choose from. Sewn to the backside edge are 9 color swatch samples in the same pattern so clients could visualize different versions. Some fabric mills still sell materials this way today! This piece would be wonderful framed or used to make a small pillow!
~A HISTORY OF VISCOSE~
The idea of viscose (sometimes referred to as rayon) goes back as far as 1664 when an English naturalist, Robert Hooke, gave a theory about artificial silk filaments that can be spun from wood pulp. This is similar to how silk is produced from silkworms. More than 200 years later, in 1885, French scientist, George Audemars, successfully extracted viscose rayon. However, French industrialist Hilaire de Chardonnet is credited with inventing the first commercial viscose fiber in 1889 that he named “chardonnay silk.” The fabric was so flammable it was quickly taken off the market until a safer process was developed by the German Bemberg Company. The viscose process was formed in 1893 and then in 1905 Courtaulds Ltd. USA produced the first economically viable “Artificial Silk.”
MEASUREMENTS : This lovely textile measures approximately 26 inches wide by 25 inches long
CONDITION : This fabric is in as found, not freshly laundered condition. The holes along the side are where it was attached into the sample book and one dime sized mark on the front~ please use the zoom feature to see condition closely. This textile is unused and in beautiful condition!
Inv: A2211