Textiles, as seen from previous posts, can inspire art projects and installations, and they can be employed for innovative projects with a social twist about them. Textiles can also tell stories, and quite often they don't even need to be extremely innovative, but they can move from traditions to tell wonderful tales.
In previous posts we looked for example at Vlisco, the Dutch wax company dating back to 1846 when Dutch entrepreneur Pieter Fentener van Vlissingen established a textile company named P.F. van Vlissingen & Co in the city of Helmond, The Netherlands.
In its collections Vlisco often displays a literary interest and the company usually publishes on its site stories about the symbolisms behind specific fabrics, highlighting the narrative power of textiles hidden in patterns and motifs, such as the iconic swallows print or attempts to make connections between poems and fabrics.
A recent fabric featuring six spark plugs surrounding the image of a woman on a background characterised by spherical optical elements evoking Vasarely features an intriguing story of technology and empowerment through textiles.
In 1940, a Portuguese trader named Nogueira arrived in Helmond to order a custom-made Wax Hollandais. He had an idea for a design that featured six bougies (spark plugs), a symbol indicating the wearer was wealthy enough to own a six-cylinder car.
Numerous trial productions were conducted, but during the Second World War, Vlisco was unable to start manufacturing the textile. At the end of the conflict this supply of fabric constituted the first shipment to the fully dried-up Congolese market, and it was an immediate success.
As the years passed, the fabric took a different meaning: the symbols of technology and wealth were indeed transformed into something else - the woman in the middle indicates the fact that she is strong enough to take on six men, a message of empowerment through fabrics. "Six Bougies" is now available once again in an updated version characterised by 7 shades with details enhanced in gold or silver.
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