Selling Silks: A Merchant's Sample Book

by Lesley Ellis Miller

In 1764, British customs confiscated a book containing hundreds of samples of different qualities of silks from French agents who were attempting to sell them illegally in London. This merchant’s sample book was acquired in 1972 by the Victoria and Albert Museum, and today it provides a fascinating record of the 18th-century French and English silk industries and their commercial practices. Alongside a full and faithful reproduction of the whole beautiful album―an extremely rare, fragile, and significant object―Lesley Miller describes how the sample book was a marketing tool for the premier European silk-weaving center of Lyon, France, and a model for English textile manufacturers in Spitalfields. She also discusses how the silks were made and for whom through the use of contemporary portraits and archival documents dating to the 1760s. The album itself is astonishing, reproducing hundreds of patterns.

Genres: Fashion, Nonfiction, Art

272 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2014

Reviews

[Inés ramirez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good and insight. I’ve seen sample books before but I didn’t know their history or purpose and learning about this specific one was fun. The samples are gorgeous.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautiful book. It reproduces in full colour the entire book of 18th century silk samples in the V&A collection. Most of the samples are from France which were at the time being illegally imported into the UK. This was because France was even in the 18th century the center of most international fashion and ladies wanted the most-up-to-date rather than what some saw a provincial local silks.

Very few of these silk brocade sample books have survived from the 18th century. They tended to be raided for their slithers of fabric or broken up or thrown out over the years. This book gives you a decent idea of the range of patterns and colour combinations available in a single style. The only thing you really can't see is the weight of the silks and their sheen and the metallic flash of the threads. If you have an interest in old silks or the patterns used in 18th century fabrics then this book is recommended.