Green Robe à l'Anglaise: Explore Collections: Windows to the World: Digital Artifacts for Global Educators: Indiana University Bloomington

Home
Explore Collections
Green Robe à l'Anglaise

Green Robe à l'Anglaise

This dress, made of patterned silk damask, was made in the robe à l’anglaise (English dress) style between 1770-1780. The robe a l’anglaise and its counterpart, the robe à la francaise (French style), were the two most popular styles of dress for women in Europe and North America. The dress is comprised of several parts, including multiple layers of white petticoats, a hip pad, a stomacher, detachable white sleeve endings called engageants, and the actual “dress,” which only refers to the green damask bodice and skirt. The bodice and skirt are sown as one piece, and the wearer puts it on as if it were a coat, with a line of fastenings along the center front. In this case, only the dress is original; the other pieces were made by conservators to show how the dress should look with all its parts.

Robes à l’anglaise were formal, noble dresses. They were usually made with the finest materials. This dress used a type of silk called “damask,” which had been popular in Europe since the Middle Ages. The term means that the fabric was woven in two different styles at the same time to make a pattern. Damask weaving originated in China around 300 BCE and came to Europe on the Silk Road in the early Middle Ages. Damask got its name from the city of Damascus (in modern Syria) where much of the fabric was sold. Most Europeans, especially the French, got their damask by trading with weavers in the Byzantine Empire. Western Europe didn’t begin producing its own damask until the mid-14th century. The long trade routes, difficulty to weave, and lack of domestic production made damask very expensive. Considering how much fabric a seamstress would need to make a voluminous robe à l’anglaise, this dress would have been a grand symbol of status in an 18th century court.

Today, damask is still used for a variety of products. It is a heavy, durable fabric good for clothes, tablecloths, draperies, and even wallpaper. Because of how it is woven, damask is also reversible, which doubles its functionality. Modern damask is made with many fibers, not just silk, and it’s done on automated looms. Its biggest exporting countries are China, India, and Australia. Today, this fabric is still associated with wealth and formality. Just like the green robe a l’anglaise, the quality, material, and pattern of damask silk make it a luxury item in international trade.

Resources

Resource 1

China Discovery Silk Road Map

This map (that you can click and zoom in on) shows a very detailed view of the Silk Road, with the main line in red. From its conception, the Silk Road carried many more products than just silk, and the variety of goods and routes only increased over time. The name “Silk Road” wasn’t even developed until the 19th century. On the same page, below the map there is a list of travel destinations along the Silk Road in China. Clicking on any of them will lead to more detailed information about the location, both modern and historical. It may or may not say directly what each city added to the Silk Road, but students could make guesses about the exports or services each stop offered.

Important stops along the route related to damask silk include Xi’an, China (the capital of the Tang dynasty where damask weaving was invented), Damascus, Syria (where the fabric was popularized and got its name), and Lyons, France (the only French hub on the Silk Road).

Resource 2

"What Remains of the Silk Road?"- Syrian Heritage

The city of Damascus, Syria, has been a center for silk trade since the beginnings of the Silk Road. Shortly after silk fabrics first arrived from China, Damascene merchants opened mills to produce their own cloth. This was a ground-up operation; Damascene textile workers didn’t just weave the silk, but also raised and harvested silkworms from scratch to get the fibers they needed. Damascus popularized damask and Damascene brocade around the Middle East and Europe. Business was steady and lucrative until 2009, when government mandates incentivized a shift back towards imported Chinese silk. This effectively stifled the Damascene silk industry. Within a decade, the textile mills were reduced to only a few traditional workers who produced high quality handmade fabrics. As this final generation of craftsmen dies out, dyed silk will soon be produced solely through machine production.

Resource 3

Roze Family Silk Weaving- YouTube

This short video shows the workshop of the Roze weaving company, which is the oldest surviving silk producer in France. The Roze business began in 1650, almost 1000 years after damask first arrived in Europe, and has been operating for twelve generations (about 370 years). As the video shows, the Roze family serves a very specific and exceptionally wealthy clientele. Silk of this quality is sold primarily to royal families and palatial historical sites around Europe. Although the Roze company is now mostly automated, with only a few workers operating the machines, the process of spinning the thread and weaving into patterns is essentially the same. The narrator notes that it takes 2-5 months to fill a fabric order today, so one can only imagine the wait time and cost that the green damask would have had even before it was tailored into a dress.