Savoir-faire: Jacquard

In the early XIX century, the Jacquard weaving technique was invented in France by the Lyonnais weaver, Joseph Marie Charles Jacquard. He also patented the Jacquard loom, a machine enabling the multiple processes employed in embroidery work to be incorporated in one single tool, which automates the interlacing of yarns to create beautifully elaborate patterns with a considerable saving in terms of time and labour. Thanks to the use of punched cards corresponding to the various patterns being executed, positioned as required on a rotating cylinder, the loom interlaces the warp thread with that of the weft, with repeated insertions into the warp. This textile process is still used today to create an infinite number of patterns. As protagonists of the Dedar collection, Jacquard fabrics are fruit of an encounter between creative research and technical knowhow. Thanks to the dense and meticulous interlacing of extremely fine and precious yarns and the artful melding of colours and materials, it is with a sense of freedom and boldness that the patterns of the collection explore the connection between graphic expression and textile art. Blossoming gardens, Japanese inspirations, magical creatures, travels to distant lands in time and space, lively geometric patterns: Dedar fabrics reinterpret the textile tradition with a contemporary sensitivity that welcomes ever new contaminations. Silkbird Jacquard, a lavish and detailed lampas fabric, owing to its high number of extremely fine threads to the centimetre, traces an oriental motif whose weave carries the echo of Chinese Coromandel decorations. In the Dedar textile interpretation, the oriental motif pays a tribute to the decorations of Chinese screens in vogue in Europe in the XVII and XVIII centuries – later to be lovingly adopted by Coco Chanel, whose Parisian apartment they adorned. The colour palette of this jacquard is played out in the nuances and luminous reflections of lacquer, precious stones, metals, and oriental porcelain.  | Photo credits: Giulio Ghirardi