Sheer Textiles

Delicate, diaphanous fabrics were used for clothing and accessories long before dressing windows and furniture, says Celia Rufey

- Celia Rufey

The sheer textile has a fascinating way with light, allowing or intercepting its passage through the weave. Its qualities have taken several centuries to prove useful as well as beautiful. Handwoven lace took the first step when it captivated Europe from the 16th century as a fashion accessory for ruffs, collars and cuffs. By the 18th century, lace was acquiring a rival: muslin.

This semi-transparent sheer, woven with evenly spun warp and weft threads, caught society’s eye - from Bonaparte’s Empress Joséphine in France, who preferred it to silk, to Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire in England. It was the finest textile ever seen, woven from a variety of cotton that grew only in the climate of the Dhaka region of Bengal, now Bangladesh. Poetically described as ‘woven air’, muslin came to Britain on East India Company ships. Besides its airy delicacy, muslin draped beautifully, its price exceeded every other fabric’s, and it changed women’s dress from structured Georgian gown to Regency chemise ~ a garment that provoked racy remarks and cartoons. Demand for muslin accelerated development of looms in Britain to weave machine-made versions, though none had - or has had since - the magical quality of the Dhaka hand-weave.