Winning ribbons

In chapter 27 of Emma, sweet but dim Harriet Smith dithers over her shopping, while Emma Woodhouse tries “with all the force of her own mind, to convince her . . . that a blue ribbon, be it ever so beautiful, would still never match her yellow pattern.”

Now we can all experience Harriet’s dilemma: The Whitchurch Silk Mill, a silk-weaving museum housed in a Hampshire mill built during Jane Austen’s lifetime, has produced a set of Austen-themed ribbons. Which, needless to say, are available for purchase.

The fourteen different ribbon patterns are named for people or places that feature in Austen’s life or work, from “Chawton” (thin strips of color on a sea-green background) to “Darcy” (bands of gold on dark blue). (Despite Harriet’s shopping trip, only Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Persuasion are represented.)

According to the Whitchurch Silk Mill, the colors and patterns of the Austen collection were inspired by items in Jane Austen’s House at Chawton, including furniture, wallpaper, jewelry, and book covers. Personally, I’m partial to the gray of “Cassandra,” the blue spectrum of “Austen,” and the variegated greens of “Barton,” just in case you were wondering what to get me for my birthday.

The mill produced a different Austen-inspired design to commemorate the bicentennial of Austen's death, back in 2017; the new collection arrives just in time for next year's 250th anniversary of Austen's birth.

The Whitchurch Silk Mill, located in a small town just twenty-five miles from Chawton, was built in 1813 and ran as a business for the next century and a half, producing the colorful silk linings of Burberry raincoats. But by the 1980s, the mill had fallen into disrepair. It was rescued and restored by preservationists and opened in 1990 as a museum dedicated to continuing the traditional handicraft of silk weaving.

The latest Austen project began nearly a year ago, and the mill’s website includes descriptions of the many painstaking steps in the process: winding silk onto bobbins, loading the warp onto looms, hand-weaving the weft into the finished pattern, and cutting the broadcloth into narrow ribbons. Given the amount of work involved, it’s not surprising that the ribbons don’t come cheap, ranging up to £75 ($96.50) for two meters.

Still, whatever the price, these ribbons—which appear to be selling, and selling out, like hotcakes--seem bound to turn up in the Regency outfits that Janeite cosplayers will wear during next year’s Austen 250th celebrations. Look for them from Canberra to Bath to Baltimore.