Paisley
Also: boteh, buta
Paisley is a teardrop motif with a curved tip, from the Persian and Indian boteh, named after the Scottish town that mass-produced paisley shawls.
The paisley motif, a rounded teardrop with a bent tip, comes from the boteh of Persian and Indian design. It reached European fashion through the costly woven shawls of Kashmir in the late eighteenth century.
Why is it named after a Scottish town?
Weavers in Paisley, near Glasgow, became leading makers of cheaper imitation Kashmir shawls in the nineteenth century, and the town’s name stuck to the motif in English.
Sources
- Paisley (AAT 300261181). Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus
- Paisley (Q937704). Wikidata
See also
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