The Centuries Of Mallorcan Embroidery

At Alcudia's fair each October there are exhibitions of autumn embroideries. I confess that they are not shows to which I make a beeline, but there are many who do, while many are the embroiderers themselves. Needlework and embroidery sound like the epitome of the cottage industry; a Mallorcan woman of times gone by busying herself with creating patterns from fabrics on the step of the cottage. And that, for centuries, was pretty much how it was. But in which century did it start? No one can say with certainty, but the first references to Mallorcan embroideries appearing in the homes of the wealthy are contained in house content inventories of the mid-fourteenth century. The traditional craft of the local "brodat" (embroidery) is at least 700 years old.

By the start of the eighteenth century, the patterns and designs of the Mallorcan embroiderers had become well established. They typically featured, for example, undulating branches of climbing plants with petals, and the reputation that this Mallorcan craft acquired was such that during the reign of Isabel II in the mid-nineteenth century Mallorcan embroiderers were employed by her court. For the most part, however, embroidery remained a craft of the homeworker, and it wasn't until the last century that workshops began to crop up. Into the story comes, therefore, the town of Sant Llorenç, a place which, until 1892, was not a separate municipality; it had been part of Manacor.

It would seem that this granting of "independence" was the inspiration for the development of a more coherent embroidery industry in Sant Llorenç. On its own as a municipality, the town sought to develop its economy, and embroidery, which would have always existed, was to become an important part of the local economy. It was to become important also for the fact that it represented the first time that women truly formed a paid workforce on the island (the pearls business in Manacor was one of the few other examples).

In 1924 the first actual workshop was opened. Or at least this is when the workshop was first officially recorded as having been in existence. It had, in all likelihood, been going for a time before then. It was located on the Carrer Major next to what is now the Bar Olimpic. Initially, five women were employed and trained in using embroidery machinery, but from this modest beginning the local industry grew so that by the 1960s some 700 women were employed in what may have been seventeen workshops (getting at an accurate number is seemingly rather difficult because not all were properly registered). As such, the growth of embroidery in Sant Llorenç provides an interesting case study of how an industry is formed as a cluster in a specific location; one thing led to another, to another and to then more.

The early output of the 1920s was mainly for the Mallorcan market but there were also exports to Barcelona. Later, and by the time things had settled down years after the Civil War and when the Franco regime had taken a more realistic attitude to the economy, exports were heading overseas as well as to mainland markets. The workshops, which for a time closed because of the war and its immediate aftermath, reopened and ultimately started to develop new product lines for the burgeoning tourism industry. Inevitably though, as with other economic sectors on the island, it was tourism which was to prove to be the undoing of the embroidery trade, as was access to cheap imports from China. Alternative employment opportunities beckoned, but there was, however, a benefit for the women who had been engaged in the industry. It is said that they had earned sufficient money to be able to invest in tourism businesses.

In the same way as with other craft traditions on the island that had been undermined by politics and tourism, embroidery has been revived. Much of it is a throwback to the nineteenth century in that it is a cottage-style industry, while some of it is simply done as a hobby. Machinery there may be, but contemporary embroidery relies on old needlecraft and on the types of design that go way back in time; hence, there are branches, petals, flowers that typified embroideries of the eighteenth century.

Sant Llorenç has been celebrating its embroidery industry this year. An exhibition of workshops, embroiderers and embroideries at the rectory in the church square will continue until 21 December. It is an exhibition that celebrates a more modern era of embroidery but also a tradition that has existed on the island for all the centuries that it has.


Index for November 2014

Albufera and maintenance of nature areas - 17 November 2014
Ant discovery in the Tramuntana - 27 November 2014
Balearic Government communication - 24 November 2014
Caimari and Llubi fairs - 16 November 2014
Calvia Beach transformation of Magalluf - 3 November 2014, 7 November 2014
Catalonia vote - 11 November 2014
Cruise shipping - 21 November 2014
Day of the Dead - 2 November 2014
Duchess of Alba / Balearics education ministry - 22 November 2014
Embroidery - 30 November 2014
Forty years on: Franco - 13 November 2014
Francesc de Borja Moll - 5 November 2014
Health service in the Balearics - 6 November 2014, 15 November 2014
Holiday lets: need for proper regulation - 18 November 2014
Més and the Mallorcan left - 19 November 2014
Partido Popular and corruption - 29 November 2014
Podemos lead in polls - 4 November 2014, 8 November 2014
Preservation and heritage - 20 November 2014
Radio and TV history - 12 November 2013
Small government - 14 November 2014
Spearfishing champions - 9 November 2014
Sports tourism - 10 November 2014
Strategic quality plan for tourism - 28 November 2014
Tax giveaway - 1 November 2014
Treasure Hunt in Mallorca - 26 November 2014
Xeremía - 23 November 2014
Youtubers - 25 November 2014

The Art Of Imitation: Artisans

An artisan, in the English use of the word, lost some of its meaning. It became wrongly synonymous with general worker, someone from an artisan class and of lower status, and it was the Industrial Revolution which did for the artisan in Britain.

The artisan has enjoyed a revival in the use of the word and in status. The Americans have gone big on artisans, re-discovering traditions of skilled, craft work and putting it on display at fairs. The British have also revived the artisan, but he is - by title - still subordinate to the catch-all of the producer of arts and crafts.

The artisan never went away in Mallorca. But the term has also enjoyed, if this is the right word, a contemporary modification. Artisan has crossed into areas where it was never strictly speaking appropriate, cooking being one example. It has become marketing speak, an alternative to "hand-made", one with the cachet of tradition, even if tradition is absent.

Artisan is everywhere in Mallorca. Its ubiquity has been given added impetus in recent years and for different reasons. One has been a consequence of a backlash against modernisation and of the other ubiquity - that of tourism - but with the irony of artisan craft being an element in the marketing mix presented to the tourist. A second reason has been economic. The decline of industry in Mallorca has left a vacuum that more traditional manufacture and skills have helped to fill. Thirdly, there has been the institutional support for something considered "a good thing". This support, be it from town halls, government, foundations or whatever, has put the artisan firmly back in the frame and given him his place at Mallorca's own artisan fairs.

The artisan fair covers a range of skills - from working with stone, as evident at Binissalem's dry-stone wall fair, to textiles and ceramics. Some of the island's fairs are "artisan" or more so than others; Pollensa's is one example, albeit that the number of artisans this year was down on previous fairs.

But the artisan fair has run up against a problem. Not everyone who exhibits or participates is in fact an artisan. Some fairs that claim to be artisan aren't really anything of the sort. Or rather, they are artisan, it is just that the participants lack the right accreditation.

The Council of Mallorca is organising, for the first time, a competition and prizes for artisanship. The prizes are due to be given for 2011 but, as far as I can make out (and someone might correct me if I am wrong), they don't appear to have been awarded yet. To qualify for the prizes, however, shows that even traditional skills are subject to the demands of contemporary regulations and bureaucracy. There is a nine-page document that is littered with references to this or that law, demands for social security and business activity documentation, the need to show certificates and so on and so on. It's a tortuous business being an artisan in Mallorca and getting through the first round of form-filling in order to try and grab a prize of 3,000 euros.

Some of these demands are understandable. An artisan is, or should be, a master craftsman (in pre-Industrial Revolution Britain artisans were, after all, the product of the guilds), and there are certificates to prove that local Mallorcan artisans are just this. Not everyone has such a certificate, however, and this is one reason why the small to medium-sized businesses association (PIMEM) has taken it upon itself to ask the government to ensure that fairs which claim to be artisan are indeed artisan, down to the presentation of certificates, evidence of locally produced artifacts, and tax returns.

It's fair enough probably. You can't just have any old Tomeu, Ricardo or Enrique pitching up with a load of bowls with "artisan" stamped on their bases. Or can you? Does it really matter? According to PIMEM, it does. Consumers will be confused otherwise or even taken for a ride into buying stuff that has nothing to do with Mallorcan artisan tradition, while local culture and identity will be eroded by artisanal interlopers.

More than this, small and professional artisan concerns will be put out of business, believes PIMEM. So, if you value the artisan tradition in Mallorca, the next time you go to an artisan fair, demand to see the business activity document, the certificate of craftsmanship and, for good measure, the tax return. This way, you will know that what you are buying is truly artisan and true Mallorcan craft and not some crafty imitation.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.