May 16, 2019 Souleiado - museum of Provençal fabric

At the end of the day today, we went back to the Souleiado museum, but there's so much to say that I've made it a separate post. The the rooms in this manor house display how Provençal fabrics were created. Rooms were set up to display clothes and textiles as they would look in a home.

A bit of history - France has always been known for its linen, silk, and wool fabric manufacturing. In the 1500s, colorfully printed cottons were imported to Marseille from India. Called indiennes, these fabrics quickly caught the eyes of the aristocracy. Soon, factories were set up in Marseille, then Avignon and other towns in Provence to create these from imported white cotton (called blancs). At one point forbidden by the king in an attempt to protect France's traditional fabric productions, it backfired and became even more popular than before. Legal once more, Jean Jourdan created a factory in the former Capucin convent which he later moved to the Hôtel d'Aimini (location of the current museum). Several owners will succeed Jourdan, each increasing the importance of the factory. By 1977, hand imprinting of the cottons was stopped in favor of mechanical imprints. Today, the brand is distributed across the world and is known for fashion rather than the table linens we normally associate with the Provençal colors.

We entered through a drying room where the fabrics were steamed with something that set the dyes. We are going backward through the process of printing the fabrics, from end product to the beginning...

then we stepped into a small courtyard that led to a washing room where excess dye was washed from the printed fabrics.

courtyard between work rooms

entrance to washing room

machines used to wash fabrics to remove excess dyes

the washing room

The next rooms displayed clothing fashioned out of the Provençal indiennes.

Purses made from indiennes

the current focus of Souleiado is fashion clothing

a quilted skirt

We stopped for a bathroom break and even the bathroom was decorated in Provençal fashion.

One very sad room explained how indiennes were used to link mothers and children. The title had me confused.

The sign says: Blood links. Souleiado prints have linked mother and child for centuries. Reading the photos and signs made everything clear. Mothers since time immemorial have had to give up one or more of their children for many reasons, often poverty. This was often done by leaving an infant on the steps of the church, or putting a child into a tour d'abandon, a turning cylinder much like a revolving door that allowed a mother to place the infant in the tour from the outside and turn it toward the inside, then ring a bell to alert those inside the church or convent of the arrival. Mothers would rip a piece of a Provençal fabric and pin half to the child, keeping half herself, with the hope that one day mother and child could be reunited if the mother's fate improved. Records were kept that included the name of the pattern the child wore to help in matching parent to child at a later time.

In the first floor, rooms were set up showing the way Provençal linens would have been used in the home.

dining room

quilts and clothing

more quilts

a quilted skirt - it gets cold in winter due to the Mistral

kitchen/dining room

Quilted fabrics called boutis (meaning stuffing in Provençal) are what we might call whole quilts - trapunto and matelassage - were also made from indiennes.

Finally we came to the last two rooms showing production techniques. This museum has over 400 design blocks.

a felted table for stamping the various colors onto the cotton

collection of wooden stamps owned by Souleiado

Master craftsmen could create 30 meters per day of imprinted white cotton with up to 8 different colors. Designs were created with metal on wood blocks which had registration marks to show where to set the blocks. They worked on felted tables moving the white cotton fabric forward after each print. 

The last room showed the chemist's lab where colors were created for the printing.

the color laboratory

Kim and I spent a lot of time in each room while the boys cruised ahead. In fact the boys left us to get a beer at a brasserie and still returned before we were finished in the boutique.

In this manufacturer at least, the fabrics of Provence have taken a high fashion turn. And one pays for high fashion.

But Kim and I each found some bolts of fabric from which we bought pieces to take home to make table linens.

As to the museum, to fabric-aholics like Kim and I, all I can say is just "Wow!"