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[[File:Badminton_India.jpg|thumbnail|250px350px|left|"The new game of Badminton in India",The Graphic. 25 April 1874]]
When British women moved to India with their husbands, brothers, and fathers in the nineteenth century they did so out of a sense of domestic obligation. An obligation to take care of these men and provide them with a comforting environment when not at work while in a foreign country. Many women did this by attempting to recreate, as much as was possible, the comforts of the homes left behind on the British Isles. One of the main ways of doing this was through the liberal use of textiles brought with them to India. Yet, many of these textiles had originated either in design or more physically in fiber, in India. The question of what these textiles were and how they came to be served to highlight the transfer of ideas and goods between Britain and India during this time.
==Kashmir Shawls==
[[File:Toulmouche_Bride.jpg|thumbnail|350px|left|The Reluctant Bride, 1865, Auguste Toulmouche. The woman on the left is shown wearing a large Kashmir Shawl.]]
One of the key items in this domestic interior was the Kashmir (or Cashmere) shawl. Introduced into the European fashion world by French noblewomen in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, they became a crucial part of the fashionable silhouette during the Regency and Empire styles. Unlike their contemporary sheer high-waisted muslin gowns (muslin being yet another Indian textile export which filtered through all layers of British society) which were replaced by the large skirted and higher necked gowns of the rest of the century the Kashmir shawls entered into the public conscious as the essential accessory for the respectable woman. <ref> Suzanne Daly, <i>The empire inside: Indian commodities in Victorian domestic novels,</i> (Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press, 2011) 13.</ref>
Originally from the Kashmir region of northern India and patterned with both floral patterns and the curving shapes which would come to be known as paisley, Kashmir shawls were desirable because the pattern was visible on both sides and the goat fiber from which they were made was extremely soft and warm without being overly bulky. Although initially, all the shawls from Kashmir were hand woven and only made in India, the development of Jacquard loom in Europe, which allowed for similar patterning (although not reversible) created an economic situation such that by the end of the century the weavers in Kashmir were priced out of the market. At that point, many of the shawls coming from Kashmir were embroidered onto a plain white woven length of shawl cloth, a style which was also used to create full cloaks for export as this process was far quicker. Eventually, even that cost saving measure was not enough and the weavers of Kashmir were forced to move to areas where the wool was not as high of quality. By the end of the century the large shawls called Kashmir were almost entirely a domestic British product and the shawls which women brought with them to India, though based off of a handmade Indian product, were fully industrial and British in manufacture. <ref> Jennifer Harris, <i>5000 years of textiles,</i> (London: British Museum Press in association with The Whitworth Art Gallery and The Victoria and Albert Museum, 1993) 107. </ref>
[[File:Woman's_Shawl_LACMA_60.46.12_(1_of_5).jpg|thumbnail|350px|left|Woman's Shawl, India, Kashmir, mid-19th century, Goat-fleece underdown (cashmere wool) twill with double-interlocking tapestry-weave patterning, pieced, with wool embroidery, in the Collection of the Las Angeles County Museum of Art.]]
Within the domestic sphere, these same colorful and brightly patterned shawls moved from the shoulders of the domestic tastemakers to cover pieces of furniture. The Victorian’s were enraptured with covering every surface in their homes with textiles. Draping a shawl across a rented piano or a piece of subpar furniture enabled the homemaker in India the ability to hide some of the roughness of the situation. By using the same or similar textiles in the same ways, women stationed in India were able to create the illusion of being in a familiar and comforting environment. What is particularly interesting about the use of the Kashmir shawl within the domestic interior is that the image which is trying to be curated is one of middle-class British comfort while the object is a visual representation of the world outside the home, the world which the British women were trying so hard to ignore.
