The discovery and adoption of Indian textiles in Europe

The adoption and the rate of increase in the consumption of Indian textiles in the Western world during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was one of those astonishing processes of diffusion which is comparable to the discovery and spread of tobacco, potato, coffee, tea, and, one is tempted to add, American silver. But it was not just in the financing of the East India trade through an increase in Europe's money supply that the New World had a vital role to perform. The opening up of new markets and the rise of new production methods based on African slave labour, which created the famous triangular trade between Europe, West Africa, and America, provided the Indian cotton textiles with a sustained outlet for nearly two centuries. The blue sallampores of the Coromandel coast became universally associated as the hated badge of slavery in the plantations of the West Indies and the southern colonies. In Europe itself the use of cotton and silk goods in house furnishing and daily and fashionwear presaged a more civilised and higher standard of living. It is significant that the consumer preference towards the lighter woollen fabrics should have coincided with the period when the imports of Indian and Chinese textiles were expanding. Cotton was cheap, washable, and the colours were relatively fast. Worn with outer woollen garments, it provided comfortable and easy-to-clean inner clothing.