Many fabrics have an identity, but few have one as fully realised as gingham. If it were a perfume, it would be nostalgic summers in a bottle: mown hay, sun-warmed skin, berries, honey, vanilla, the toastiness of a fresh-baked pie, the sweetness cut by a little sea salt and rosemary. Think picnics, warm-weather uniforms, jars of homemade jam and Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. Simple, effortless, eternal; not a fabric, you might suppose, capable of surprises.
Appearances, apparently, can be deceiving. Gingham was, after all, adopted by both the Mod and Ska counter-cultural movements of the mid-20th century. Added to which, gingham fabrics used to look rather different.
The word itself comes from the Malay term genggang, meaning striped: it was often used to describe a kind of plain-woven cotton textile made from alternating lines of dyed and undyed yarn in Malaysia, Indonesia and India in the 1600s. This cloth was exported to Europe by the Dutch and British East India companies, where it found ready buyers.
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Gingham only became checked thanks to cotton mills in 18th-century Manchester. They began using some of the techniques – and name – of the Asian-made cloth to make the kinds of plaid designs that were already popular with their customers. The end result was a simple, two-colour, reversible check that typically pairs creamy white with red, blue, pink or yellow. It was relatively inexpensive to make and buy, and it soon became a classic the world over.
In the home, gingham is the indecisive decorator’s best friend. Made by thousands of different firms in innumerable sizes and colourways, and at myriad price-points, it happily pairs with more assertive prints, such as rococo florals or painterly abstracts, but has character and charm enough to hold a room on its own. It feels neither overtly masculine or feminine and toes the line between formal and relaxed. It is, in short, a chameleon. Classic and understated in deep blues; charmingly country in bright red; graphic in black and white; more contemporary at a larger scale.
Chelsea Textiles makes both a small and large gingham in a relaxed linen-cotton mix, the former in 15 different colourways, from antique blue to ginger. For something a little more luxurious, the large ‘Eaton Check’ by Colefax and Fowler comes in 22 colourways, each with a moiré finish. Purists might prefer Romo’s ‘Elmer’ or ‘Kemble’ – simple, all-cotton versions in small and large scales respectively that look particularly chic when paired in matching colourways. Just the thing for bringing a touch of nostalgic summer into your abode.
