One Pattern to Rule Them All - A Brief History of Paisley

While we at Cravat Club are usually known for adventurous, modern designs with mythological motifs, playful colour and more, we also have plenty of time for the classics. Polka dots and florals have us just as sartorially excited as contemporary prints, but if we really had to choose one print to rule them all? We’d have to choose paisley.

With its origins in Persia, a long history in the UK, and an even longer list of famous fans, the print seems to hold endless versatility, able to reinvent itself when styles change. We see why - it can do gentle and foppish or stridently rebellious with equal ease, as able to work in a gentleman’s club as well as it does on the back of a Harley-Davidson. But how did it reach its enviable position in fashion?

Persia, India and Zoroastrianism

To understand paisley, you need to start with a little bit of history about the Indian subcontinent. This is its spiritual home, being introduced there by the Zoroastrians who travelled between Persia and India in ancient times. However, this is roughly where the certainty about this period ends, and where the speculation begins. Early Indo-Iranian people flourished in South Asia, where they exchanged culture, language and religion, and as such what happened when and where becomes blurred.

Echoes of the pattern in the Noh Gunbad mosque in Balkh, Afghanistan, built circa 9th century AD and the oldest Islamic building in the country.

The designs from this time are referred to as boteh jegheh, or “ancient motif” - what the motif actually represents is a source of debate to this day. Some scholars say that the pattern refers to the cypress tree, a key symbol in Zoroastrianism; others say it more likely represents a tear drop, while others still have suggested the sun, a phoenix, or the religious sign for an eagle. Different cultures seem to interpret the pattern differently, which is perhaps a key tenet of its popularity. Later, in around 800AD, the pattern could be found in mosques in Afghanistan, demonstrating again the geographical origins of the pattern, as well as its popularity and adaptability. 

Kashmir

It’s around 1400AD that the pattern starts to turn up in Kashmir, now shared between modern India and Pakistan. Shawls of extremely high quality were made in the region using versions of this Persian pattern. While these were not yet identical to modern paisleys, it is thought that in the 1700s, around the time Europeans were starting to arrive in India, the shawls of the mughals and nobility they saw very closely resembled the modern pattern.

An authentic Kashmiri shawl from the Victorian period.

Incidentally, the word for the pattern in the local languages have a very strong commonality with the word for “mango”, leading to another possible interpretation of what the pattern represents.

As Ever, the British were Coming…

Around that time, some of the first Europeans to arrive in India were employees of the British East India Company. This corporation was one of the largest that ever existed, and as a tool of the British colonial government, went on to have a total trading monopoly with India. This led high-quality Indian goods to be in enormous demand in the British Isles, and Europe in general. 

Light hits the stained glass at the Nasir-ol-Molk mosque in Shiraz, Iran, also known as The Pink Mosque, completed in 1888.

While these opulent woven shawls were now available in the UK, it came at a price; an authentic Kashmir shawl, made of the finest silk and taking a lot of skilled labour to produce, was incredibly expensive. There are even reports of a good one costing as much as a house at the time. Clearly, this was something for the very rich only, and not something that could pass into more general use as a fashionable item to own. However, once the industrial revolution started to creak into operation, things changed drastically. 

Paisley As We Know It

The cloth-weaving industry, already very strong in the country, had been aware of these beautiful patterns for some time. However it was only in recent years that technological innovation had made their reproduction possible. Now it would be possible to get these beautiful shawls at a fraction of the price of the hugely rare items from Kashmir. Many towns produced these shawls and scarves in great quantity, however the town that was most known for the pattern was Paisley, Scotland. Sitting in the industrial and shipping heartland of the Clyde river and close to population centres in Glasgow and Edinburgh, it had access to both markets and materials, along with a well-established weaving trade. 

The town of Paisley, Renfrewshire, where many examples of this print were made, giving the pattern its well-known English name.

Soon, production of these fabrics took them into fashionable circles, with Oscar Wilde, for example, an avowed fan of the pattern, and it went on to feature in many of the high fashions of the time. Liberty produced versions of it in London, and it became a favoured motif of William Morris and the Arts & Crafts movement. 

Ford Madox Brown, The Irish Girl, painted in 1860.

Not everyone was so keen however, with snobbish voices decrying the debasement of a once-fine fabric into something for the lower classes to enjoy. This ties into prevailing attitudes in the upper classes about the industrial poor at the time - they thought it was vulgar that something once so rarefied had found its way through society’s strata.

Fall and Endless Revival

Musician Jimi Hendrix wears a paisley cravat in the late 1960s.

While the design fell out of favour later in the Victorian period, it would re-emerge with a vengeance in the 1960s, when it became closely associated with the psychedelic movement. A focus on colour, chemically-altered states and expressions of freedom coincided with a new love for India and the exotic. Many of the most famous and iconic artists of the period could be seen wearing paisley, from Hendrix at the Isle of Wight to Pink Floyd’s cravats. With a slightly different spirit, the look was adopted by bikers and outlaw singers too, with country singer Willie Nelson often wearing a paisley bandana to help furnish his anti-establishment image.

British band Pink Floyd in full psychedelic regalia, c. 1967.

A young David Bowie wears a paisley shirt in the 1960s.

Guitarist James Burton plays his paisley-finished instrument alongside Elvis Presley in 1977.

In the 1980s, the look moved into different areas of music. Prince wore spectacular paisley outfits often, named a single “Paisley Park”, then gave his home and studio in Minneapolis the same name, recording some of his most famous records there. As if in a mirror of the 60s, paisley was also adopted by outlaw musical figures, with the pattern becoming a key part of west coast hip-hop’s wardrobe in the 90s. Tied specifically to Los Angeles gang culture, Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg for example often wore paisley bandanas as a symbol of street affiliation. 

Rapper Tupac Shakur often favoured a paisley bandana, pictured here in the 1990s.

Meanwhile, in the UK, musical artists who revered 60s icons like The Who and The Beatles wore paisley to express their fandom; Oasis, Primal Scream and Paul Weller are just three examples who made paisley their own, with Liam Gallagher’s own clothing brand heavily featuring paisleys to this day.

So, why is it so popular?

Paisley’s genius is in its range. The examples given above illustrate the sheer versatility of the pattern, none of which look out of place or inappropriate, despite being wildly different from one another. The same is true when wearing paisley today. Depending what colours you choose and how you match it, it can be reserved and traditional or utterly experimental, referencing Mod culture, Victoriana, eastern mysticism, English identity, psychedelic exploration and much more.

The Azerbaijan Winter Olympic Team, Vancouver 2010, wearing paisley prints as a nod to their Persian heritage.

When choosing a paisley, use the colours of the pattern to identify what garments it will go with; a good paisley will work with both similar and opposite colours. From there, think about how much you want to show off, with a tie for example showing more than a cravat or pocket square would. Most of all, you probably have an idea in your head of what paisley represents to you, and we’re not going to attempt to talk you out of it. This ability to speak to the wearer is what has made the pattern so indispensable over the years, allowing it to be reinvented over and over again.

Some of Our Paisley Range

The king of versatility, the impossible-to-pin-down, the classic of classics - truly this is the pattern to rule them all. If you’ve been inspired to add a touch of paisley to your wardrobe, shop now and see if there is something we can tempt you with…