Made another trip to St. Gallen with my mom yesterday, to check out the current exhibition at the Textile Museum: Kirschblüte & Edelweiss (cherry blossom & edelweiss). (Click on one of the images of the exhition and you can actually see more images than on the website itself).
This has been staged as it's the 150-year anniversary of diplomatic connections being taken up between Switzerland and Japan, and it's all about the influence of Japan and China on the Swiss textile industry. In 1859, a delegation of fabric tradesmen from St. Gallen travelled to the region for the first time, trying to open new markets for their products (St. Gallen, at that point, was mostly producing lace of all kinds - Zurich in contrast was a center of silk production and trade in silks and other fabrics, and Glarus had fabric printing). This started an active cultural exchange between Switzerland and Japan and China. From 1870 onwards, Asian and Asian inspired styles came into great fashion.
There were exhibits of the laces St. Gallen was producing in the 19th century, utterly amazing fabrics, garments and other things from Japan and China (mostly 19th century - the Chinese embroideries are mindblowing, as are the examples of Japanese stencil printing
) that had been collected in textile companies' archives to use as design inspiration - and then of course the result of all this, fabrics, lace decorations etc. with "Asian" or Asian inspired designs that were produced in Switzerland, as well as items made in Japan and China for the export market. And probably one of the strangest and also fascinating things: a print of Japanese women in ca. 1880s style bustle dresses made from colorful kimono fabrics. And then of course the continuation of the story - photos of Swiss trade delegations over several decades of the 19th and 20th century (technology and machines were exported too of course, not just fabric!), notes from one salesman traveling in Japan and Taiwan in the 1980s both for negotiations and design inspiration - and lots of fabric samples. A lot of well-known Swiss fabric companies like Forster-Rohner or Weisbrod-Zuerrer actually for a long time did special fabric collections for export to Japan. Weisbrod even launched a special rayon fabric called Lascara for Japan, and they had old ads etc. on show. Today, it's just a very small portion of what Forster-Rohner does that's still made especially for this market, but up to the 1980s it seems to have been quite a lot, and of course there were still more companies in operation then as well. Forster's fabrics are astonishing though, mostly embroidered with novelty motifs, and some quite elaborate - I can see that this would tap into the "kawai" thing hello kitty emoti. And I would love to use some of them myself! 
Plus there were some dresses from a high-end fashion label from Hongkong that does modern fashion inspired by traditional styles - using elaborate sequinned fabrics from St. Gallen.
All in all it was a great exhibtion showing amazing fabrics and of course how West and East inspired and influenced each other - and still do.
This has been staged as it's the 150-year anniversary of diplomatic connections being taken up between Switzerland and Japan, and it's all about the influence of Japan and China on the Swiss textile industry. In 1859, a delegation of fabric tradesmen from St. Gallen travelled to the region for the first time, trying to open new markets for their products (St. Gallen, at that point, was mostly producing lace of all kinds - Zurich in contrast was a center of silk production and trade in silks and other fabrics, and Glarus had fabric printing). This started an active cultural exchange between Switzerland and Japan and China. From 1870 onwards, Asian and Asian inspired styles came into great fashion.
There were exhibits of the laces St. Gallen was producing in the 19th century, utterly amazing fabrics, garments and other things from Japan and China (mostly 19th century - the Chinese embroideries are mindblowing, as are the examples of Japanese stencil printing
) that had been collected in textile companies' archives to use as design inspiration - and then of course the result of all this, fabrics, lace decorations etc. with "Asian" or Asian inspired designs that were produced in Switzerland, as well as items made in Japan and China for the export market. And probably one of the strangest and also fascinating things: a print of Japanese women in ca. 1880s style bustle dresses made from colorful kimono fabrics. And then of course the continuation of the story - photos of Swiss trade delegations over several decades of the 19th and 20th century (technology and machines were exported too of course, not just fabric!), notes from one salesman traveling in Japan and Taiwan in the 1980s both for negotiations and design inspiration - and lots of fabric samples. A lot of well-known Swiss fabric companies like Forster-Rohner or Weisbrod-Zuerrer actually for a long time did special fabric collections for export to Japan. Weisbrod even launched a special rayon fabric called Lascara for Japan, and they had old ads etc. on show. Today, it's just a very small portion of what Forster-Rohner does that's still made especially for this market, but up to the 1980s it seems to have been quite a lot, and of course there were still more companies in operation then as well. Forster's fabrics are astonishing though, mostly embroidered with novelty motifs, and some quite elaborate - I can see that this would tap into the "kawai" thing hello kitty emoti. And I would love to use some of them myself! Plus there were some dresses from a high-end fashion label from Hongkong that does modern fashion inspired by traditional styles - using elaborate sequinned fabrics from St. Gallen. All in all it was a great exhibtion showing amazing fabrics and of course how West and East inspired and influenced each other - and still do.
