By 1900 Cocheco printed more than 50 million yards of fabric each year. Pacific Mills had taken them over in 1909, and shut down the printing operations three years later. They continued to spin and weave the cloth for Pacific Mills until 1940, when the doors permanently closed.
June 9, 2010
June 3, 2010
Popular Victorian Prints
Throughout most of the 19th century, Cocheco made a shirting print with a tiny vine and floral all-over pattern, in one or two colors, with a miniature blue or red dot on some of them. They also produced eccentric geometric designs, fancies, one and two-color stripes, and conversation prints featuring different sporting and hobby equipment, animals, and other common objects of the day in the last quarter of the 19th century.
May 31, 2010
Victorian Colors
Following the discovery of synthetic dyes, such as aniline in 1856 for purple (not used on cotton until the early 1860s) and alizarin in 1869 for Turkey Red, a change occurred in common print work companies color palette,. At Cocheco, they used these, along with natural dyes such as logwood, lamp black, and indigo, throughout the 1880s. In 1887, a fire devastated the company, destroying all of their machines and ultimately closed them down for an entire season. This led to further changes in their palette, from deep browns, dark reds and pretty pastels, to more complex and varied colors on prints. Pinks became more violet. Shades of copper and bronze appeared. New shades of blue appeared, from royal, to turquoise, to gray.
May 28, 2010
Victorian Fabrics Patterns
A favorite pattern of Cocheco looked like bubbles rising through the air, or strings of pearls. Purple fabrics with small print motifs in black or white, was considered a staple in ladies wardrobes. Paisley shawl prints and Oriental motifs were found on shirting, muslin, batistes, satine and fancies. Chocolate prints were white or gray motifs on a chocolate brown background. Quite popular in the 1880s, the dark brown could make the gray appear light blue.
May 26, 2010
Victorian Fabrics
Furnishing fabrics made of cotton were also relegated to less formal rooms as decor. Cretonnes were considered “charming.” Cretonnes were large-scale prints, like early chintz florals, but never glazed and sometimes in a twill weave, or textured weave. Furnishing fabrics used more colors, and were more complex and time-consuming to produce. These style trends were slower to change.
May 25, 2010
Victorian Fabrics
Satines purposely imitated silk’s smooth and lustrous finish and were the most popular novelty fabric at Cocheco in the mid-1880s. Satines often imitated Japanese indigo prints. As the 1880s ended, they made prints with dull and lusterless finishes, challises and cashmeres. A finishing process called calendaring was used to achieve both of these looks. A shiny finish went out of style at the end of the decade, as did border and scenic prints.
May 24, 2010
Victorian Fabric Patterns
A favorite pattern of Cocheco looked like bubbles rising through the air, or strings of pearls. Purple fabrics with small print motifs in black or white, was considered a staple in ladies wardrobes. Paisley shawl prints and Oriental motifs were found on shirting, muslin, batistes, satine and fancies. Chocolate prints were white or gray motifs on a chocolate brown background. Quite popular in the 1880s, the dark brown could make the gray appear light blue.
May 21, 2010
Victorian Furniture Fabrics
Furnishing fabrics made of cotton were also relegated to less formal rooms as decor. Cretonnes were considered “charming.” Cretonnes were large-scale prints, like early chintz florals, but never glazed and sometimes in a twill weave, or textured weave. Furnishing fabrics used more colors, and were more complex and time-consuming to produce. These style trends were slower to change.
May 20, 2010
Victorian “Class” Fabrics
Cocheco’s target audiences were the middle and working classes. Cotton fabrics, shirting, cambric, percale and madder-style prints, were used for informal clothing in rural settings throughout the late 19th and early 20th century. Printed satine and cambric were the recommended dress fabrics for the upper class’s daytime socializing, according to the fashion gurus. Young women wore lawns and batistes in the summer. Lawns, a lightweight sheer linen fabric, were made in France, and later came to England and America. From the 1870s to mid-1880s, they were a popular fabric for border prints, a style for which Cocheco became known. The bordered edge was three inches wide. Small geometric designs or flowers could compliment the border throughout the print.
May 17, 2010
Cocheco’s Varied Fabrics
Cocheco produced dress goods, furnishing fabrics, novelties and printed patterns, such as stuffed toys from 1827 to 1912. Records of their goods are archived at the American Textile History Museum, in Lowell, Mass. The museum’s Cocheco records and samples date from 1855-1917, with the majority being from 1880 to 1890.