Behind the Seams: Global Circulations in a Group of Japanese-Inspired Cotton Nightgowns c. 1700

Abstract

Starting from close analysis of a late seventeenth-century cotton nightgown made in India that borrows its pattern from a traditional Japanese motif, this article contextualises the garment within a group of three other similar gowns to understand the complex cultural geographies they wove together. From the small material details of the making and design of these textile hybrids, the article retraces a larger story of global trade and exchange: a story that takes us from Europe to Japan, India and beyond. It shows how even within what may seem like a neat pattern of circulation between three geographical areas, linked together by the arrival in Asia of European trading companies such as the Dutch East India Company or VOC, various multi-layered patterns of hybridisation coexisted and sometimes pre-existed the arrival of European traders.