The new permanent exhibition Chintz. How a Fabric Conquered the World, which opens at Château de Prangins on 8 May, interweaves local and global history and considers Switzerland’s links to the wider world. It sheds light on the involvement of many Swiss people in key chapters of the modern period, including industrialisation, the triangular trade, colonisation and slavery. The exhibition forms part of the new Chintz Centre, which also comprises a study room, a bed of dye plants in the kitchen garden, and a wide range of natural dyeing workshops.
Traders in Geneva importing fabrics from India to sell in Bordeaux, from where they are sent on to Brazil to be used as clothing for African slaves. Merchants in Basel setting up in Nantes to better fund and combine cargoes for the slave trade. Officers from Neuchâtel in the service of the powerful Dutch East India Company. Swiss plantation owners or managers making use of slave labour. These histories and many more besides are just a few aspects of the fascinating yet extraordinarily complex saga of chintzes: printed cotton fabrics that are regarded as the first ever global product.
The new exhibition allows visitors to retrace the evolution of chintzes across four continents, exploring their impact on the various places where they were produced and consumed. The journey leads from India to Brazil via Switzerland, France and western Africa, emphasising the Swiss presence and role at every stage. Indeed, in many places around the world, on different scales and in different ways, people from Switzerland helped either directly or indirectly to write the story of chintzes. This is an engrossing account of fashion and globalisation: a tale of imitation, prohibition, industrial espionage and contraband.
A study room adds an extra dimension to the exhibition, with information on manufacturing techniques, the iconography of chintzes and the productions of various factories. Meanwhile, a wide range of complete natural dyeing courses offers a hands-on experience of the world of chintz.
The new Chintz Centre at Château de Prangins takes a global and interdisciplinary approach to a fascinating area of cultural history and enables visitors to better understand some of the issues of globalisation, both yesterday and today.
Project management and curatorship: Helen Bieri Thomson, assisted by Barbara Bühlmann and Matthieu Péry