Named after its French inventor, Joseph Marie Jacquard, the jacquard loom was one of the most impactful inventions in history. It essentially automated the more efficient production of sturdy, elaborately patterned fabrics—what we now call jacquard fabrics—and forever changed the way we decorate ourselves and our world. 

The first loom that made it possible to create patterns in silk fabrics was called the drawloom, and it most likely originated in China around the second century BC. Long before the invention of the jacquard loom, traders from East Asia were believed to have brought drawlooms to Italy’s silk-working centers during the Middle Ages. Though the drawloom allowed the raising and lowering of individual warp threads to incorporate different color weft threads (a feature necessary for producing visible patterns in the fabric), the process required intense concentration and nuanced labor, as well as multiple weavers (a minimum of two people) working in collaboration, including a “drawboy” to manually lift and lower the warp threads throughout the weaving process.

Before the invention of the jacquard loom (sometimes called the jacquard machine or jacquard mechanism) around 1800, the European method of weaving patterns and colors into fabrics (to create what’s called brocade) was a time-consuming, difficult, and even dangerous process. The finished fabric was also very expensive, because the decorative work was primarily done by hand. That meant that colorful, patterned fabrics were available only to the wealthiest members of European society: Elegant brocades in vibrant colors could only be found in the wardrobes of kings and queens, or featured in ballroom curtains and palatial decor. 

In fact, for a long time, most fabrics—even those without elaborate patterns and multiple colors—were created by hand (and thus very expensive). When English inventor Edmund Cartwright patented a new, mechanized power loom in 1785—a key step in the Industrial Revolution’s transformation of the weaving industry—the process of creating fabrics for basic clothing and decor needs soon became quicker, easier, and more affordable than ever before. But these larger, industrialized looms were focused on mass production of simple, plain fabrics, rather than ones that were elaborately decorated, textural, patterned, or multicolored. 

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