A Zurich exhibition looks at how the slave trade, colonial exploitation and religious conversion all led to the establishment of Switzerland’s textile industry and boosted its wealth.
In the 17th century, “Indians were the only ones who knew how to make printed cotton fabrics," says Pascal Meyer, curator of an exhibit on textiles called “Indiennes”external link at the Swiss National Museum. “There was no cotton or colour in Europe.”
As the Zurich exhibition explains, the technique for manufacturing colourful printed cotton fabrics was copied by the Dutch and British who used mechanisation to make them cheaper and undermined the Indian textile industry. The bright and affordable “Indiennes” fabrics produced in Europe became so popular that the “Sun King” Louis XIV had to ban them due to pressure from domestic wool, silk and linen manufacturers.