Until 1625, the chintzes brought to Europe largely featured exotic designs. Most prominent amongst the images featured in these was the Iranian and Chinese-inspired ‘flowering tree’, which, writes Crill “has come to epitomise India’s textile trade with Europe”. The chintzes made for consumption in India and nearby featured coloured backgrounds, but the ones sent to Europe mostly had white ones, as Chinese porcelain was popular at the time. Crill writes that white also “reflected new sociocultural attitudes about health, cleanliness, and purity: all clear signifiers of luxury”.
‘Purposefully exotic’
Things changed in the middle of the 17th Century, when chintz began to be used to make clothes. While there was still demand for Indian designs, from 1625 onwards, European traders began sending Indian artisans instructions to make ones more in line with European aesthetics. The way in which chintz was adopted as a dress fabric, however, differed across the continent. In France, it was first sought after by the aristocracy; but in England and Spain, the elites only began wearing chintz “from the 1670s [onwards],” says Fee, “decades after working women had already adopted the fabric. Working women [in these countries] would use cast-offs [of furnishing fabrics] for clothing”. As it was worn by all classes and both women and men throughout Europe — “there were rules against the masses wearing silk, but not cotton”, she notes — Indian chintz “is recognised as the first mass fashion”.