The Story Behind Embroidery
The craft of Schiffli-embroidery is practiced all over the world and involves a vast number of techniques, stitches, threads, base fabrics and embellishments. There is no universal way of classifying embroidery, as different cultures use different terms to describe stitches and techniques. This blogs portrays the historical beginning of the embroidery industry tracing back to to the Swiss town of St.Gallen during the mid-18th century
The historical beginning of the embroidery industry can be traced to the Swiss town of St Gallen where, during the mid-18th century, merchants inspired by Ottoman silver and gold embroidery initiated the production of hand-made embroideries on silk. A local shortage of embroiderers soon led to the training of peasant women from the Bregenzerwald area in neighbouring Austria, who worked part-time from home. The Lake Constance Region already had a long history of flax spinning and linen weaving going back to medieval times.
Though the first manually operated embroidery machines were in use around 1860, the real groundbreaking development for the embroidery industry came with the Swiss invention of the steam-powered shuttle embroidery machine (Schiffli machine) by Isaac Gröbli. His machine was based on the principles introduced by the newly invented sewing machines, which used two sets of threads, one on the obverse and one on the reverse side of the cloth. Gröbli ‘s machine, however, used the combination of a continuously threaded needle on the obverse and, more significantly, a shuttle containing a bobbin of thread underneath. The shuttle itself looks like the hull of a sailboat, hence its nickname, Schiffli, meaning ‘little boat’ in Swiss German (the term is still in use at the beginning of the twenty-first century). The first embroidery factory in Lustenau on the Austrian border with Switzerland was founded in 1875 and by the turn of the century the embroidery industry had become the region’s major employer and foreign exchange earner. Along with Switzerland and Saxony, Vorarlberg became one of Europe’s three foremost centers of the embroidery industry. Increasing industrialization did little to alter the basic structure of the embroidery industry. Even today, a significant part of production is out-sourced to small family enterprises (known as “wage embroiderers”) operating one or two embroidery machines and under contract to larger embroidery companies. . The Schiffli machine could make a wide range of embroideries, as well as imitation lace forms. The advent of computer driven machines with design software, still using the Schiffli machine principles, has meant that just about any form of design, no matter how complex, can be created using a wide range of stitches.
Sample book with white work embroidery
Lustenau, Austriaearly 20th century K. Riedesser company, Lustenau. Photo: Alex Rosoli.
The embroidery industry in Lustenau in Austria flourished in the period from 1880 until about 1928, when almost all the town’s residents earned their living in this trade (Fitz 1947). For the most part, embroiderers produced inlays and lace for ladies’ underwear and for under- and over-garments. In the early 20th century, it was fashionable to wear white dresses made entirely of embroidered fabric; in the period from 1907 to 1910 blouses were often decorated with embroidery. Another standard product until 1928 were embroidered handkerchiefs.
At that time, the industry was already focused almost exclusively on exports. The target countries were mainly in Europe, with Great Britain and Germany the biggest buyers. Outside Europe, textiles were supplied to Egypt and Turkey. By about 1928, Austria was supplying as many as sixty-six countries, including many distant lands such as British India, Morocco, the Dutch East Indies, the USA, Argentina, British Africa, China, Japan, Mexico, Brazil, Cuba, and the British West Indies. Until the outbreak of the Second World War, the British West Indies, Great Britain, the Netherlands, French Morocco, and the Dutch East Indies were the largest markets; major clients in both Great Britain and the Netherlands were actually themselves export companies (Fitz 1947: 156). India purchased primarily dress fabrics embroidered with artificial silk, while demand in the North African market was for colourful fringed shawls and richly embroidered dress fabrics; embroidered curtains were sold to the Netherlands, and handkerchiefs, decorative cloths, tulle, and guipure lace to Great Britain (Fitz 1947: 157).
With the onset of the Great Depression, in about 1929 a major crisis also beset the embroidery industry, triggered by several factors. In around 1913, women’s fashions in the USA and Europe switched to close-fitting garments, as a result of which demand for trimming lace – one of the industry’s main products – declined. Furthermore, starting in 1917 cotton underwear was no longer decorated with embroidery. However, one of the chief reasons for the decline was the fact that from the First World War on, unembroidered artificial silk became fashionable for underwear, and the use of knitted fabrics in general became widespread. Accordingly Fitz stresses: “In summary it can be said that artificial silk (fabrics and knitted articles), colour weaving, and finally printed fabric are the three factors that caused fashion to turn its back on embroidery” (1947: 100). Another factor in the crisis was that many countries increased the import taxes levied on embroideries that were considered luxury goods, and therefore prices became problematically high. In the USA, for example, in 1922 customs duty rose from between 45 and 60 per cent to between 75 and 90 per cent, and in Japan in 1924 from 40 per cent to 100 per cent. In addition, in the interim an embroidery industry had established itself in the countries that had originally been major distribution areas. This was the case in the USA, France, and Italy. The biggest competition for Lustenau embroiderers at that time came from Switzerland, where embroidery had long been the most important export, ahead of watches, machinery, and silk. Saxony in Germany also had a significant embroidery industry; later on, competition came from the USA, Japan, Italy, and France (Fitz 1947: 177).