French textiles are the woven, printed and embroidered fabrics produced in France, which for several centuries set the standard of luxury and fashion across Europe. They include figured silks, velvets and brocades, tapestries, knotted carpets, printed cottons and the rich trimmings known as passementerie.
Lyon became the centre of the French silk industry, producing damasks, lampas and brocaded silks for the court and for export, with designers such as Philippe de Lasalle creating celebrated patterns in the eighteenth century. The Jacquard loom, perfected in Lyon in the early nineteenth century, mechanised complex figured weaving and spread around the world. Tapestry was woven at the royal Gobelins and Beauvais manufactories and at Aubusson, which also became known for flat-woven carpets, while the Savonnerie made knotted pile carpets for royal palaces. At Jouy-en-Josas, Christophe-Philippe Oberkampf's factory produced printed cottons whose pictorial designs gave the name toile de Jouy. Antique French textiles are prized for their colour, design and quality of weaving, and fragments of silk and tapestry are often used for cushions, upholstery and framed panels. Fading, splitting and old repairs are common and should be checked in good light.
