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