Imitation and Piracy in Paisley Shawl Design, 1805–1870

Abstract Facilitated by increased trade between Asia and Europe, handwoven shawls from the Kashmir region of the Indian subcontinent became desirable clothing for Europeans during the mid-eighteenth century. By the 1770s, European manufacturers had picked up on this trend, producing textiles that imitated Kashmiri shawls but sold at lower prices to meet a wider market. In this article, I investigate the imitation Kashmiri shawl industry of one of the most prominent European centers of shawl production—the town of Paisley, Scotland—to study the designing of its products between 1805 and 1870. I examine the training and sources used by Paisley’s ‘pattern drawers’—as the industry’s designers were then called—to answer the question: How much did Paisley’s pattern drawers rely on the patterns of their competitors—European and Asian—to produce their own work? And did all Paisley pattern drawers pirate others’ work? The answer will provide insight into the intertwined nature of imitation and innovation, and moral assessments of copying from European versus Asian products.