Own Your Encore

We spent a few days in workshops and learning more about the textile history of Lyon. The two rivers, the Rhône and the Saône, divide the city into an old medieval section where the textile trades started and the hills where in late 18th and early 19th century the weavers moved and where today some weaving studios are preserved.

We had the pleasure of learning about printing silk scarves from Gabriele at L’Ateliee de Soierie. He walked us through the screen printing process and explained block printing of silk. Banker turned professional silk artist, Gabriele blends & cooks colors to print the silks.

This shop can hand print up to 7 colors on a scarf … at Hermès, who print at an atelier outside Lyon they can hand print up to 48 colors. It’s a beautiful art!

We visited a preserved weaving studio. The housing for the family and the looms were all within the studio. An apprentice would start weaving at 12 years old and was expected to know how to read, write and do math… all important to weaving. Woman also were weavers in these studios.

The JAQUARD loom, seen here, is huge and this invention required the weavers to relocate to very tall studios, typically on the hill above the rivers. The looms shown are weaving trims.

A walking tour took us into Traboules … these are the ‘secret’ passageways that run under, behind and through buildings, and were shortcuts used by the silk workers to move quickly, and allowed them to keep the silk clean and out of the weather. There are more than 230 Traboules, locals live in the buildings and use the passages today. During WWII the passages were an important part of the resistance.

Other curious photos from the week…

Next week we take a deep dive into making engineered garments and fabric designs.