Lyon, historically an industrial city, has hosted numerous industries to the south of the city along the Rhône, Lyon became a very commercial city and a first-rate financial center during the Renaissance. Its economic prosperity was driven successively by the silk industry, then by the appearance of industries, in particular textiles, chemicals, and more recently, by the image industry.

From the beginning of the Renaissance, Lyon gradually became the silk capital of Europe. Lyon’s economic growth made it one of the most prosperous cities in Europe, thanks to the success of the four annual fairs. All major European commerce now passes through Lyon for a century, and the largest banks of the time, mainly Italian, settled in the city, including the Medici, the Gadagne and the Gondi. Lyon is also developing thanks to its own industries, the most important of which are silk and printing, notably with printers Sébastien Gryphe and Jean de Tournes.

This period is one of the city’s golden ages. Enriching itself considerably, its population increases enough to almost triple with a peak around 60,000 to 75,000 inhabitants. Despite this demographic growth, the city does not push back its walls, becoming denser by the subdivision of many cultivated land and the raising of buildings. Many buildings from this period remain in Vieux Lyon. It is from this period that the traboules date, passages through the courtyards of buildings allowing to go from one street to another parallel street. They required less space than the construction of streets or transverse alleys.

History of silk in Lyon
The history of silk in Lyon includes the study of all the players in the silk industry in Lyon. The Lyon silk sector throughout its history includes all stages of the manufacture and sale of a silk fabric from raw silk: spinning, creation of a pattern, weaving, finishing, marketing. The whole sector is called the “Factory”.

Spanning five centuries, this story begins on the banks of the Saône during the Renaissance, thanks to the fairs that allow the establishment of fabric merchants. On royal decision, the first weavers settled under François I and prosper quickly. This first industrial impetus was broken by the wars of religion.

The arrival at the beginning of the XVII century, the profession pocketing allows the factory to control the patterned fabrics. Its European development began with the reign of Louis XIV, the fashion of the court of Versailles imposing itself on all the other European courts, and dragging Lyon silk at the same time. In the XVIII century, Lyon silk maintain their position thanks to constant technical innovation, quality and designers of permanent stylistic innovation.

The French Revolution dealt a heavy blow to the Factory, but Napoleon vigorously supported the sector which crossed the XIX century while experiencing its peak. Lyon is then the world capital of silk. It imposes itself on all the other silky industries in Europe and exports all possible types of fabric widely all over the world. Under the Second Empire, it was the most powerful French exporting industry.

If the first difficulties appear in the 1880s, the arrival of artificial textiles will be right in the Lyon silk industrial production during the XX century, traditional manufacturers failing to adapt, or too late. The silk industry collapsed in the 1930s, and despite many attempts to revive it after WWII, activity in the city was reduced to haute couture and the restoration of old fabrics.

Origin of silk
The technique of making silk from the silkworm cocoon is discovered in China in the Shang Dynasty (XVII - XI centuries. BC). Long remained Chinese monopoly, it is imported at great expense by the Roman Empire up to the VI century, when they say the monks sent by the Byzantine emperor Justinian relate to Europe eggs silkworm.

The introduction in Europe
Silk exists in Europe since the IV century in the Byzantine world. The technique of silk weaving is then transmitted to Muslim civilization, where it prospered during the Middle Ages. It was through this that the weaving of silk was introduced into the medieval Christian world. When Roger de Hauteville conquered Muslim Sicily, in the second half of the XI century, preserved in part the crop and it creates an original civilization, named Arab-Norman culture. An emblematic object of this transmission is the embroidered silk coronation mantle of Roger II, King of Sicily. Until the XIII century, silk weaving in Christian Europe is confined to Sicily, before spreading to Lucca, Venice and other Italian cities. Another transmission channel is the Muslim Spain, reconquered by the Christians over centuries, but whose technical and artistic contributions are very real, as evidenced typical Spanish replicated patterns in cities Italian.

The Renaissance: the birth of the Fabrique
The manufacture of silk in Lyon appears during the Renaissance. Taking advantage of a very favorable environment thanks to fairs, great freedom in the organization of the profession and the regular presence of monarchs, the silky industry is developing rapidly. It reached a first golden age under the reign of Henry II before suffering a severe crisis during the wars of religion.

First attempt
In the XV century, Lyon is a place important exchanges which Charles VII gives the right to hold two fairs free of taxes. Gradually increasing to three, then to four per year in 1463, they developed rapidly and took on great importance in European commerce during the Renaissance. It sells, among other goods, many silks, mainly from Italy.

To stop the flight of currencies due to the immoderate taste of the French elites for foreign silk, Louis XI wanted to create a silk factory in Lyon. By the ordinance of November 23, 1466, he ordered the citizens of Lyon to finance the establishment of workshops in their city. However, the latter, anxious not to interfere with their main Italian trading and banking partners, drag their feet and the attempt stumbles. The few workers settled in the city were sent to Tours, to the castle of Plessis-lèz-Tours, in 1470.

This refusal of the Lyon merchants can also be explained by an economic situation which does not seem favorable to this industry. The city’s labor force is not plentiful enough for cheap production, and the gains from the simple silk trade are by comparison certain and regular. The Italian silky merchants were therefore essential to the smooth running of emerging fairs, and supporting the birth of an industry that would compete with their cities of origin would risk scaring them away. It is the modification of this environment that will allow, some fifty years later, the real birth of Lyon silk.

In the meantime, a Lucquois merchant, Nicolas de Guide, tried to weave silk in Lyon in 1514, but he was violently attacked by compatriots, who accused him of competing with his own city. Not supported by the consulate, he gives up.

Turquet and Naris: the birth of the Lyon silky industry
In 1536, Étienne Turquet and Barthélemy Naris, Piedmontese merchants settled in Lyon, wished to establish factories there for the manufacture of precious fabrics. François I, by letters patent, agrees to give them the same privileges as the city of Tours, and installs the corporation and workers in “cloth of gold, silver and silk”. Turquet, Naris and their workers are declared free from all taxes and from any guard or militia service, on condition that they work in the city and not outside. Turquet sets up the “Fabrique lyonnaise de soierie” company, with the help of bourgeois Lyonnais, including the Senneton brothers, and bankers, including Camus, La Porte, Faure; he brings in workers from Avignon or Genoa.

The immediate rise of the silk industry
Supported by the king, who gave Lyon a monopoly on the import of raw silk in 1540, the silky industry was immediately successful. In 1548, during the parade for the entry of Henry II, 459 tradesmen marched; between 800 and 1,000 people live from the silk industry in Lyon. This rapid growth can be explained in part by a favorable economic environment, an abundant available workforce and a flexible regulatory framework. Indeed, Lyon is then a very free city and where the craftsmen are not under the constraint of closed corporations, this freedom being protected by the royal letters patent of 1486 and 1511. The first company of Turquet and Naris was dissolved in 1540, each continuing the activity in isolation. Several silky masters then appeared, including Gibert de Crémone (who also had a weaving in Saint-Chamond), Leydeul or Rollet Viard, who also had looms in Avignon.

The significant development of the activity imposes, from 1554, the establishment of the first regulations to organize the activity and the corporation. These are written by the masters of the trades and the notables of the consulate, then formalized by the king. According to Roger Doucet, the apogee of this first period of the Lyon silk industry took place during the reign of Henri II. Estimating the real development of production is difficult. The figures provided by the consulate are difficult to use because they are often magnified by the interested parties and mixing the silk and wool workers in the same group. Nevertheless, this new industry managed to impose itself against imports of Italian silks into the kingdom of France, by being less expensive than the entry-level fabrics of the latter. Richard Gascon relies on the entry of bales of unworked or semi-worked silk, and therefore intended for the production of fabric, to propose the following estimate: between 1522 and 1544, the volume could have been multiplied by 2, 5 and by eight between 1544 and 1569.

This success should not hide the fact that throughout this period, the Fabrique only knows how to manufacture plain fabrics, which do not compete with the high-end productions of the Italian cities of. Despite a few patterns obtained using ligatures or rods by Lyon artisans, transalpine artisans remain the sole masters of the manufacture of shaped. It was not until the 1600s for Lyon to achieve this, with the technical developments brought by Claude Dangon, most likely imported from Italy.

Crisis of religious wars
The occupation by Protestant forces of the city in 1562 and 1563 caused a crisis which could be temporary, but which, accompanied by other negative events, led the Lyon silk industry into the first cyclical depression in its history.

With the seizure of power in Lyon by the Protestants in 1562, many great merchants, who were also major manufacturers, left the city. The trades suddenly lack raw material, and the commercial circuits for the flow of production are sharply reduced. The plague of the following years accentuated the depression; in the complaints they send to the king, the silky masters who remained claim that two thirds of the workers have disappeared.

In addition to these occasional catastrophes, there was an event weakening Lyon silk, which had to face stiff competition. In 1563, Charles IX, then thirteen years old and who had just taken possession of a country ravaged by religious divisions, decided to tax the entry of raw silk into the kingdom at 50%. This leads to a significant loss of competitiveness for Lyon weavers who see foreign productions (most often entering France fraudulently) become cheaper than theirs. In addition, the competing cities of Geneva, Besançon, Turin, Milan, Modena or Reggiobegan to manufacture plain and striped low quality sold inexpensively. They attract a part of the workforce based in Lyon, which is then in the lack of work.

The fall in workforce and production is difficult to establish. Richard Gascon estimates that from about 3,000 looms in the late 1550s this drops to some 200 in the 1570s.

At the end of the XVI century, King Henry IV who want France to produce itself the silk thread, encourages the breeding of silkworms. Helped by the work of Olivier de Serres who briefly planted mulberry trees in the Tuileries garden, he supports their development, in particular in the Cévennes and Ardèche, where the climate is favorable. Mulberry cultivation was also developed in 1564 in Languedoc and Provence by François Traucat. Thus appeared the first French silkworms.

XVII and XVIII centuries: the Lyon silk to the court
During the XVII and XVIII centuries, the Lyon factory is closely dependent on the royal court, and to a lesser extent conflicts shaking the European monarchies. This link explains the alternation of good and difficult periods that affect the world of silk workers and their trade.

From Henri IV to Louis XIV
At the beginning of the XVII century, the factory less than 1000 master weavers, who own in less than 2000 looms and have fewer than 3000 people in all. Under Henri IV, the silk industry in Lyon underwent two important developments.

The first is the introduction by Claude Dangon of the large draw loom, imported from Italy, allowing the weaving of shapes. The arrival of this mechanism allows Lyon to support the comparison with Paris and Tours, and to reach the level of productions coming from the Italian cities. At that time, the cities of northern and central Italy dominated European silk in both the quality and quantity of their production. They impose their style on the continent, sought after by all the elites. The quality of Lyon silk is further increasing thanks to the introduction in the city ofpolishing of silk by Octavio Mey in 1655.

The second development is the appearance of regulations governing the profession. Until that time, master weavers were free to organize themselves as they saw fit. In 1596, apprenticeship was set at five years, followed by a two-year period of companionship. The master can only have two apprentices and he is prohibited from employing people outside his family, for example for ancillary work such as the assembly of chains and wefts.

Until the middle of the XVII century, Lyon is a minor silk center compared to transalpine cities. The trade in precious fabrics is still controlled by Italian merchants.

Colbert’s reforms
In 1667, Jean-Baptiste Colbert established several ordinances on the “Grande Fabrique de Soie” in Lyon. These decrees and regulations strictly regulate production by detailing the quality expected for royal orders and by specifying, for example, the width of the fabrics or the number of threads to be used. They also make it compulsory to keep manufacturing records. Sumptuous fabrics are then made in Lyon for the princes of the court or the fitting out of the various royal residences, including the castle of Saint-Germain-en-Laye and the castle of Versailles.. Thus the “brocade of love” in six parts garnishes the king’s chamber in 1673. No part of this period survives at the present time because the tissues used at that time were sent to smelting to recover the precious metal.

The mercantilist policy of Colbert strongly supports the development of French industrial production. Its action is effective on the world of the Fabrique, whose number of weavers triples between 1665 and 1690. In order not to offend a clientele still attached to traditional Italian styles, French merchant-manufacturers are not innovating in terms of the motif. They even sometimes pass their fabrics off as transalpine, in order to reassure their customers. This development was not broken by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685), even if very many silk workers of Protestant faith went into exile, taking refuge in particular in Switzerland (inZurich) and London (Spitalfields district).

Commercial and stylistic
From the very end of the XVII century to the 1720s, the royal orders cease completely. The last years of the reign of Louis XIV were difficult for the world of the Fabrique Lyonnaise, the royal mourning restricting the official demand for precious fabrics.

The Lyon industry, at the time entirely devoted to French noble luxury, was forced to seek other outlets by targeting a less fortunate clientele, asking for simpler fabrics. This more modest clientele, however, does not compensate for the shortfall caused by the stoppage of orders for Versailles. It is in this period that outline a business strategy that is proving to be a success during the XVIII century. Playing on the fact that the court of Louis XIV is the most brilliant on the continent, and that the fashion of the European elites is influenced by Versailles and Paris, Lyon traders export new products every year that are essential to foreign elites.

A report submitted to the Parliament of London in 1713 found that English silk manufacturers, in order to succeed in selling at home, were obliged to stick to the fashion which had arrived from France. But the delay they took in copying and sending their pieces to counters condemned them to less profitable sales on high-end fabrics. However, English silk workers remain the main players in silk on their own soil.

To satisfy the permanent need for novelty, merchant-manufacturers decide to produce fabrics with original patterns, seeking to move away from traditional designs. This permanent stylistic innovation, helped by the proximity of the merchant-manufacturers of the courts of Paris and Versailles, allows Lyon to gradually oust foreign, Italian, English or Dutch fabrics. However, commercial results remained mixed until the 1730s.

Under Louis XV and Louis XVI
Benefiting from the favorable evolutions known under Louis XIV, the Grande Fabrique crossed the Age of Enlightenment by dominating the European silk trade; it has “a fair reputation as a silk metropolis abroad “. The silky industry has seen many innovations in the loom, intended to improve the productivity or the quality of the final fabric.

After two centuries in which the Lyon silk follow foreign and especially Italian fashion, they eschewed completely XVIII century in a race for innovation and permanent renewal. The European fashion center was then Paris, where all major Lyon manufacturers had at least one representative to never be behind the trends of the court. They send their designers there who are fully at the forefront of this movement. The two emblematic people of this artistic activity are Jean Revel and Philippe de la Salle. La Fabrique acquired such prestige that the other European production centers in turn took to the Lyon fashion.

During this century, the Lyonnais exported the majority of their production to southern or central Europe. Via Spain, they circulate their products to South America. Their silk fabrics are also sold a lot in the Nordic countries and especially in Sweden. Lyon merchants are however in competition with several other producing countries, including Italy and Great Britain. The latter firmly holds the market on its soil, and that of North America.

Organization of the Factory
La Fabrique is institutionally dominated by the great merchants, who are constantly supported by the king. The factory bodies set up during the XVIII century of innovation support systems that enable the whole industry to take advantage of multiple inventions.

The power struggles for control of the factory
As in previous centuries, the Factory was shaken by disturbances between the elite of silk merchants, who controlled and kept the sales channels for their benefit, and the master weavers and workers, to whom direct sales were more or less prohibited. The latter continue to seek a better place in the silk trade circuit, whether by having an institutional role or by guaranteeing remuneration with a defined price.

Tensions begin to XVIII century with the consular order of 4 June 1718. It blocks the rise of master weavers to the merchant class with an entry fee very high. Following the royal order of 1730, the Comptroller General of Finance Philibert Orry promulgated a new regulation on October 8, 1731 which was very favorable to large merchants. At that time, the Factory had 120 to 180 large merchants, approximately 700 small and 8,000 master workers.

A struggle for influence continued, which resulted in the proclamation of a new regulation in 1737, authorizing the association of several small merchants and workers, and direct sales, without the obligation to go through a large silky. Suspended in 1739, this regulation was replaced in 1744 by a new regulation confirming the supremacy of the commercial elite. As soon as it was announced in August, riots broke out, led by master workers. The king’s local forces are overwhelmed and the government suspends the new regulations to appease the spirits. The following year, the situation is violently taken in hand and the regulation of 1744 definitively imposed.

The social structure
In the XVIII century, the world of the factory has four bunk groups without fixed borders.

The elite are made up of traders who master the wholesale trade in raw silk, reselling the raw material to merchant-manufacturers. These several dozen families also accumulate investments in spinning, the resale of woven silk and banking. These traders are frequently linked to Italian, Turinese or Milanese families.

A second group includes about a hundred merchant-manufacturers, also called “silky”, who supply silk for weaving to master workers, employ designers and resell the fabrics ordered. About thirty of them are large-scale and work alongside the group of international traders, from which they stand out for their lack of mastery of upstream commercial circuits. This class is subdivided into two groups, the “big merchants”, who sell in a real store and employ a large number of workers outside their workshop, and the “small ones” who manufacture themselves and sell on their own account., with an average of four trades in their house.

The third group is that of master workers, who own one or more looms. They receive the threads and designs from the merchant-manufacturers and can in turn employ apprentices or helpers. This group finds it difficult to endure the state of subjection in which the regulations place it, as well as the absence of any guarantee on the remuneration for their work, the “tariff”. He organized himself, secretly since any association of bodies was forbidden, and protested, sometimes violently as in 1744.

Finally, the last group is that of the innumerable helpers, apprentices and workers who do not have their own production tools.

Technical improvements
During the XVIII century, many innovations are applied to the loom in order to facilitate the work, showing new types of weaving. This research and development is based on a commercial logic, and is promoted by the trading community. Merchant-manufacturers establish “public management of innovation, based on shared negotiation of technical utility and the rapid dissemination of new techniques through financial, municipal and community investment. In this sense, the corporation, far from being backward-looking, on the contrary promotes technical innovation ”.

At the beginning of the century, systems were developed to facilitate the reading of the drawings and the choice of the warp threads concerned by the passage of the shuttle. It is about the Basile Bouchon trade, exploited from 1725. A colleague of Bouchon, Jean-Baptiste Falcon, invents the system of punched cards carried by a prism, which makes it possible to diffuse much more quickly the complex reasons of a workshop. to another. This period is also the one which saw a first attempt to mechanize the weaving looms, thanks to Jacques Vaucanson, in the 1740s. This attempt, rejected by the workers of the Fabrique, however. These innovations, not always technically advanced, are not always adopted, but are part of the continuous improvement of the performance of looms.

Public system of innovation support
Local authorities are well aware that innovation is the key to their commercial success. Support for inventors is institutionalized through two methods of financial compensation. The first comes directly from the corporation of the Fabrique, which provides for example to Jean-Baptiste Falcon 52,194 books between 1738 and 1755 to reward him for his work to improve the loom. The second is governed by the municipality and the steward. It is supplied by the fund for the right of foreign fabrics, created in 1711. From 1725, part of the income of this fund is granted to inventors, this proportion increasing from the years 1750. These provisions are supplemented by a distribution bonus, rewarding people who adapt a new system to a large number of looms.

Over the course of the century, the methods of validating requests for funds have become more and more sophisticated, and are based on the cross-expertise of academics and professionals. This cooperation between various trades inaugurates a deep trend in Lyon culture, which seeks consensus and arbitration. It leads in the early XIX century, the institution of the industrial tribunal.

During the XVIII century, Lyon cater to the royal administration Trade 229 patent applications for inventions in textiles, including 116 intended only to improve the loom. It is most often the weavers who carry out these studies, intended to improve all the long and delicate operations allowing the realization of the patterns. Of the 170 inventors who ask the authorities to validate a technique, only 12 are major merchants. Designers are also inventors, combining stylistic research with technical research to develop new fabrics. Thus, Jean Revel created in the 1730s the point “returned” or “berclé”, which allows the creation of halftones. The relief rendering in the fabric and the shades of color obtained are unknown at this time. This innovation is immediately taken up and imitated in Great Britain.

Lyon’s elites are thus increasing aid for innovation and the dissemination of techniques, both in a spirit of respect for corporate solidarity and rewards for innovative individual practices. “In Lyon, inventions are a blessing for the economy of the city and the kingdom, before being an asset in the hands of their designer”. Exclusive privileges are therefore very rare in Lyon, and rarely concern the world of silk.

Prosperity and definition of French style: 1700-1750
During the Regency of Philippe d’Orléans, the Grande Fabrique experienced a certain instability because many orders came from people who were artificially enriched with the Law system, their ruin preventing final payment. In addition, the rise of the Compagnie des Indes, which offered new textiles to the French market, was in severe competition with Lyon silk.

The peace at the start of the effective reign of Louis XV and many happy events in the royal family, including the birth of the Dauphin, brought orders to the silk workers of Lyon. A period of prosperity ensued for the Fabrique. The pleas of Lyon merchants, relayed by the consulate, resulted in a large royal order for upholstery silk in 1730 for the Palace of Versailles. This order finally stabilized the Lyon silk sector and allowed it a solid growth until the 1750s. Activity doubled between 1720 and 1760. One of the main silky houses of this period is the Charton family, which provided most of the royal furniture between 1741 and 1782.

Lyon designers
This period is also the one which saw the emancipation of Lyon designers from the Italian style, to establish their own trademark. This style quickly established itself throughout Europe and helped to boost sales of Lyon silk among the elites across the continent. The designers were formed through contact with Lyon painters such as Charles Grandon, Daniel Sarrabat (who will have Philippe de la Salle as a student) or Donat Nonnotte. Unique in Europe, they often have shares in silk business and are therefore both sponsors and designers employed. Likewise, they do not form an organized group and, unlike merchants or weavers, they do not have their own corporation. Thus the design does not belong to the one who executes it, but to the silk house which ordered it before.

To find their inspiration, after long years of study, they “frequented engraving cabinets, art collections, Gobelins factories, theaters, aristocratic palaces and the court ”. But they are also fabric technicians, mechanics and traders, because a design is made according to its commercial impact, its feasibility and the final quality of the fabric that carries it before.

Among the designers of this period, Courtois carried out the first tests of color degradation, by juxtaposing threads of different shades, ranging from the lightest to the darkest. Ringuet is one of the first to strive for an imitation of nature for floral decorations. One of the great innovators of this time is Jean Revel, whose invention of the rocked point, allowing the obtaining of melted colors, had an immediate success before.

The French style
The appearance of the first forms of a properly French style dates from the glory years of Louis XIV and from Colbert’s desire to build up a powerful national industry. Competing with Italian and Spanish fashions, it first imposed itself in the French court and then slowly in all European courts. This style therefore becomes de facto European.

It is characterized at its beginnings by the appearance of asymmetry, sharper designs. Floral decoration is the favorite subject, repeated over and over again, but with constant renewal. “The motif is no longer stylized but the fruit of the naturalistic reproduction of reality, studied directly or observed in botanical treatises”. In the years 1700-1710, the so-called “Bizarre” style spread, offering an exuberant and fanciful treatment of naturalistic motifs. We find in the lengthwise drawings a mixture of familiar and unusual themes, chinoiseries and Japonese, and patterns with proportions a priori incompatible.

The 1720s and 1740s are the period of the Regency style, characterized by “decorations where flowers, plants and fruits with nuanced and bright colors bloom generously in the midst of architectural motifs or ruins, vases or baskets, shells or rocks ”. At the beginning of the reign of Louis XV appear the “lace” motifs. The semi-naturalistic floral motifs with sometimes fruits and leaves are crisscrossed with imitations of lace.

Finally, the years 1730-1740 were marked by the taste for a more classic and realistic representation of nature, even if the 1740s were also those of rococo. It was also at this time that the first attempts at representations of relief on fabric were carried out, following the invention of Jean Revel. To highlight this novelty, the patterns are enlarged in large proportions, for example giving “a rose the size of a cabbage and that of a pumpkin to an olive”.

The French style is not only characterized by the innovation of the designs, but also of the fabric, by the invention of new weaving processes.

The influence of the French style and the commercial success of the Factory
The French style, following the prestige that it had acquired under Louis XIV, gained an even greater place under Louis XV on all the luxury markets of Europe. In Great Britain, Holland or Italy, the silky centers of the continent are forced to copy, late, French fabrics. Despite the high reputation of the Dutch weavers in the early XVIII century, despite laws banning the entry of French silks in Italy, Lyon manage to win in all markets of the continent.

These merchants then practice an offensive commercial policy. After coming up with the new fashion of the year and making great profits from it, and before the local silksmen have been able to come out with fabrics imitating their patterns, they heavily sell off their residue to break prices and prevent imitators from making big bucks. benefits of their work. This, of course, just before the arrival of the new fashion which makes all unsold products obsolete and therefore even more difficult to sell.

This commercial policy oriented towards foreign markets is supported by several royal decisions to protect French industry. In 1711, the monarchy created a tax on the importation of raw silks, which was collected in Lyon with the establishment of a “fund for the right of foreign fabrics”. The silk workers of Lyon protest by arguing that their silk is becoming less competitive than foreign fabrics. The State therefore modified it in 1716 by sharply increasing the duties on the importation of foreign fabrics, the collection of which was concentrated by the same fund. This protectionist attitude was softened in 1720, but continued thereafter.

Crises and difficulties: 1750-1770
Between the years 1750 and 1770, several crises manhandled the business of the Rhone silk. These periods of difficulty began with the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748) and the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763). They are accentuated by numerous mourning at court or by conflicts in the northern countries which are major importers of Lyon silk. The crisis reached a peak in 1771, with the conflict between the Russian Empire, Poland and the Ottoman Empire, also good customers of French traders.

In 1756 a school of fine arts was founded by the abbot of Lacroix-Laval and a group of art lovers. In 1780, it became “the Royal Academic School of Drawing for the Advancement of the Arts and of Manufactures in the City of Lyon” providing free lessons. She trains many draughtsmen in classical painting and the reproduction of natural flowers in all their shades. However, they seek to evolve in order to offer new products to their sponsors and customers.“Between 1750 and 1770, the garlands of flowers and plants, antlers, ribbons, trimmings cords… run vertically through the fabrics in undulating, meandering or“ river ”movements in the rococo style ”. The technique of drawing intended for weaving is theorized for the first time by Joubert de l’Hiberderie in his “Designer manual for fabric factories” of 1765.

The most emblematic designer of this period is Philippe de la Salle, considered in the 1760s to be the best of his profession. The latter, with many others, is also working on the technical improvement of looms, including easing labor shooter lakes. He perfected the shuttles, other parts of the trade and invented the removable semple. Supported as a designer, teacher and inventor by the Fabrique and the city of Lyon, he receives 122,000 pounds from them for all of his actions. His fame was such that he was invited to give a weaving demonstration at the Tuileries in front of Louis XVI, who ennobled him in 1775.

The renewal before the revolutionary turmoil: 1770-1790
A revival occurs from the beginning of the reign of Louis XVI and especially in the years 1780, in part thanks to the administrator of the storage room Thierry de Ville d’Avray. Convinced of the excellence of Lyon’s artisans, he established a series of orders between 1785 and 1789 which restored activity in the city. They are intended for the royal apartments of Versailles, those of Rambouillet, Saint-Cloud and Compiègne.

To adapt to changing tastes, the Fabrique turned to embroidery, developing a large sector of silk embroiderers. Merchants, manufacturers are also trying of fashionable techniques such as mixing with other fibers silk, moiré of Tours Big or drugget in which the chain competes alongside the frame to form the pattern.

La Fabrique is also continuing its traditional production of large shaped pieces. The Louis XVI style, in the neoclassical movement which prevailed at this time, is reflected in Lyon silk by ” pastoral ” compositions punctuated with medallions and knots of ribbons, in the Trianon style, while the mythological scenes or allegories in imitation of bas-reliefs or ancient cameos form elegant decorations punctuated by arabesques, garlands of pearls, vases, putti or any other ornaments in the style of Greco-Roman antiquity ”. There are also drugs, polka dots and stripes. The patterns become smaller, often not exceeding two to three centimeters, and are arranged vertically. Camille Pernon or Jean-Démosthène Dugourc are important representatives of this style.

To satisfy their customers, silks are constantly renewing their designs rather than seeking to develop simple, plain silks. The houses therefore employ designers, regularly sent to Paris to keep abreast of the latest fashions and to offer customers ever new designs. Regulations attempt to protect these designs, and claims to the highest courts establish copyright. In 1787, a council decree guaranteed the designer the exclusivity of his work for a period ranging from six to twenty-five years. Among the notable designers, sometimes designer-manufacturers, stand out Jacques-Charles Dutillieu, Joseph Bournes, François Grognard and Pierre Toussaint de Chazelle.

At the end of the XVIII century the Lyon silk reputation again provides important European courts commands, including those of Catherine II of Russia and Charles IV of Spain. Thus, Camille Pernon was introduced by Voltaire to the Russian court and became the Empress’s agent between 1783 and 1792.

With a succession of cycles of prosperity and difficult years, the idea of a minimum tariff for weaving appears, and becomes a strong demand. In 1786, the Revolt of the two sous, which again saw merchants and weavers confront each other, was severely repressed. The authorities then reiterated the absolute power of the consulate in sanctioning trade between large merchants and workers, a consulate itself largely in the hands of the former. The royal power prohibited any rise in prices and any workers’ organization. This revolt, in its operation, foreshadows the great workers’ revolts of the XIX century.

At the dawn of the Revolution, there were 14,000 looms in Lyon, employing more than 30,000 weavers and 30,000 employees for ancillary activities; this for a total population of around 150,000 inhabitants.

The revolutionary crisis
Lyon enters the revolutionary period in crisis. The years 1787-1788 were difficult for the silky industry, production being halved.

In 1789, during the preparation of the Estates General, the vote of the deputies revealed the irremediable cut between the weavers and the merchants. No representative of the latter is elected, only those of the master workers go to the Estates General. In the notebooks of grievances, they express their desire for a more just organization, designating the master merchants as responsible for their misery.

The weavers obtain an official tariff in November 1789, and decide to separate themselves from the merchants by creating a separate community at the Saint-Jean Cathedral on May 3, 1790. They also have great hopes in the law of June 16, 1791 which suppresses corporations and their privileges. At the same time, the authorities are trying to protect French silks by establishing customs duties.

However, with the exodus of part of the nobility, the Factory automatically lost a large part of its clientele. The crisis sets in with inflation and war, which hamper trade. The rich shaped fabrics are replaced by simpler, plain fabrics, decorated with embroidery. The siege of Lyon in 1793 caused a terrible exodus, which greatly hampered the possibilities of production; From around 150,000 inhabitants, Lyon rose to 102,000 in 1794, then 88,000 in 1800. The repression which followed caused the death of 115 of the 400 silk entrepreneurs in the city. Many merchant-manufacturers also emigrated, fleeing political fighting and persecution. In 1793, the Royal School of Fine Arts was abolished.

Between 1794 and 1799, the world of merchant-manufacturers was gradually reconstituted thanks to the arrival of houses which worked in other French cities. From 1794, from Nîmes and Anduze arrive the silky Laguelline, Ourson and Benoit. At the end of the same year, Guérin settled down, coming from Saint-Chamond.

During these difficult years, to cope with the lack of manpower, technical innovations were supported by the State through competitions and school foundations. In particular, the drawing school was recreated in 1795 under the name “flower drawing school”. The silk workers of Lyon sought ideas from English engineers, in the cotton fabric production sector. This mechanization effort of the production tool results in early XIX century to the Jacquard.

From the First Empire to the Third Republic: the apogee of the Lyon silk industry
The XIX century marks the apogee of the Lyon silk. The production, diversity and commercial expansion of this sector are on an unprecedented scale. After the Napoleonic revival, the city lived entirely on its weaving and its trade, leading to other industrial sectors and the banking sector. Silk made the city world famous, especially through the exhibitions.

The rebirth under Napoleon
Under the Napoleonic Empire, the Factory slowly reconstituted its productive capacities, welcoming foreign investors and leading to the emergence of a more modern and efficient working environment. To make up for the lack of manpower and speed up production, decisive progress was made with the development of the Jacquard mechanism.

The imperial orders and the restoration of the silky industry

At the beginning of XIX century, the silk rises from the ashes, notably under the impetus of Napoleon. Aware of the economic potential of silk, the latter inquired about the situation of the Rhône economy, in particular during his three-week stay during the Lyon consultation of the Cisalpine Republic in January 1802. He placed important orders for the Imperial Palaces. The first is granted to the only merchant-manufacturer Pernon in 1802, for the castle of Saint-Cloud, like the second intended in 1807 for the throne room of Versailles. In the years 1808-1810, several other manufacturers (Lacostat & Trollier, Bissardon, Cousin & Bony and Grand-frères) produced various pieces for Versailles and the Château de Meudon.

The largest order arrives in 1811 for an exceptional amount of 2 million francs for purchase over 80 000 meters fabrics. It is particularly supervised by the administrator of the furniture of the crown Alexandre Desmazis who stays a month in Lyon to supervise its implementation. It is distributed among a dozen Lyon silk manufacturers including Lacostat, Bissardon, Cousin & Bony, Grand-frères, Chuard, Dutillieu & Theoleyre, Corderier, Seguin, Gros.

Thanks to official purchases, production growth is continuous under the Empire, averaging around 1.7% per year. This made it possible to find and exceed the level of 1789: while in 1801, the production of silk fabrics was 35% lower than on the eve of the Revolution, it returned to this level from 1810. At the same time as the Fabrique, it is a part of the textile sector, especially that which is most closely linked to it, such as the production of precious metal thread and embroidery, which experienced significant development under Napoleon.

An enabling environment
The destruction of the regulatory framework of the corporations under the Revolution having led to a deep disorganization of the activity, the imperial power, strongly requested by the silk workers of Lyon, undertakes several reforms to put in place a professional organization and instruments to improve the conditions of the trade. silks. He was at the origin of the restoration of the Chamber of Commerce in 1802, the creation of the Condition des Soies in 1805, and the establishment of the very first industrial tribunal, then exclusively devoted to Lyon silk.

The silks of Lyon come together in aSociety of Friends of Commerce and the Arts which supports the establishment of a provident fund for weavers, a regulated tariff or vocational education to guarantee a certain quality to the workforce. To support the artistic skills of designers, an imperial school of fine arts was founded at the Saint-Pierre palace, along with a museum in 1807, even if the director Pierre Révoil quickly oriented its teaching towards the art more than industry. In the same movement, a drawing competition is instituted, the endowment of which is provided by the chamber of commerce.

As part of imperial orders, the dye chemistry sector in Lyon made significant progress. Following the discovery of defects present in the first order of Pernon, the scientists of Lyon are doing research to find more stable, more beautiful and less expensive dyes. Napoleon also ordered the creation of a chemistry school in Lyon. The first director of this school, Jean-Michel Raymond, thus discovered a process for making Prussian blue with a form of cyanide, much less expensive than traditional processes.

This period is also the moment when the first “exhibitions of the products of the national industry” allow certain Lyon merchant-manufacturers to present their know-how. The first to exhibit was Camille Pernon in 1802. Subsequently, silks were more and more numerous, and the exhibition catalogs made it possible to follow the evolution of techniques, styles and fashions.

As the silk industry struggled to find local investors capable of reviving production and trade, many foreign firms were welcomed to replace those that had succumbed under the Revolution. Branches then set up in the city, placing orders for simple fabrics intended for export to Europe or further afield. These houses commit significant capital to Lyon, thus helping to restore the productive system. Among them are the Swiss companies (especially Geneva) Diodati, Odier & Juventin, Memo, L. Pons, Dassier, Debar & Cie; Germans Feronce & Crayen (from Leipzig) and H.) and Travi (from Turin).

Mechanization of production with the “Jacquard Craft” and consequences
In response to a prize proposed in 1801 by the Société des Amis du Commerce et des Arts concerning the improvement of looms, Joseph Marie Jacquard proposed a mechanism that allowed a single worker to make a complex fabric, instead of several previously.. For this, he uses the research carried out before him by Basile Bouchon who had developed a needle loom in 1725, first improved by Jean-Baptiste Falcon who had added a system of punched cards, and by the automatic cylinder mechanism. by Jacques Vaucanson dating from the 1750s.

Unreliable at the start, Jacquard mechanics were continuously perfected, among others by Albert Dutillieu (inventor of the regulator in 1811) and Jean-Antoine Breton (who developed the drive for the cardboard chain in 1817, a decisive improvement). However, the loom retains the name of “Jacquard Loom”, without this posterity corresponding to its real place in the technical development of looms.

This investment in an apparatus for the mechanization of production is explained by the permanent lack of manpower which slows down all activity at this period. Indeed, the Lyon population is only 102,000 inhabitants, against 150,000 on the eve of the Revolution, and it only dates back to 120,000 inhabitants at the end of the Empire.

During the XIX century, mechanized craft is required United to manufacture silk or simple patterns, but is less useful for more complex designs, which require time debauchery preparation, whatever the profession used. This mechanization leads to a continuous fall in the cost price of simple silks, while fabrics with the most elaborate patterns remain very expensive. The Jacquard loom, once perfected, was a great success, the number of machines increasing from 41 in 1811 to 1,879 in 1820, while the pull looms quickly disappeared, the workers themselves appreciating the time savings obtained.

Restoration to the Third Republic: growth and height
At that time, the upheaval of social structures saw the rise of the bourgeoisie who, like the nobility, wanted to dress in silk. The restoration of 1814 will allow the Lyon silk industry to diversify thanks to the liturgical garment. At the heart of the century, Lyon silk was then radiant. She manufactures everything, sells all over the world and wins in international competitions. During the Second Empire, it was the most important exporting industry in France. This prosperity is the result of the conjunction of three factors: merchant-manufacturers who invest heavily and engage in ever new markets; a mass of independent weavers, endowed for the elite among them with a great know-how; and an artistic and scientific sector allowing permanent innovation.

Organization of the Factory

The development of a fabric within the Fabrique is a very fragmented activity. Thus, it is rare that the houses of merchant-manufacturers have weavers employees. Most of the time, they are the contractors, who employ the fabricators, workshop managers. Likewise, many merchant-manufacturers do not sell their fabrics directly to the end customer. They spend most of the time through commission agents responsible for placing their productions in all the cities of the world.

To this fragmented organization there was one exception: the establishment La Sauvagère, a factory-boarding school created in 1817 in Saint-Rambert-l’Île-Barbe, a former municipality now annexed to Lyon. It was a shawl factory that integrated all manufacturing operations. In 1827 it had 250 looms. The workers slept in the factory itself, in separate dormitories. This factory was seen as a role model because food was cheap and there were schools for children. Its owner ran it paternally; it induced a master-servant relationship, rather than a boss-worker relationship, as in the rest of the Factory.

The silk supply
Between 1815 and 1849, the consumption of silk increased fourfold. For silky houses, therefore, it is necessary to constantly find new sources of supply for silk thread or raw silk to be transformed into thread.

The masters of the Factory do not generally have their own field of production of raw silk or silk thread, buying them from specialized companies or abroad from intermediaries. Until the middle of the century, half of the raw material came from the silkworms of the Cévennes and the other from Piedmont and Asia. Rare companies embarked on investment in production units, such as the Palluat-Testenoire house, which has for example five factories near Mount Lebanon, or the Lyonnais Charles Payen, who set up a flourishing spinning business in 1845 in India.

The Lyon presence in China is more notable, facilitated by the Lagrénée trade exploration mission from 1843 to 1846. Mandated by the French government, the stay in China lasts two years, from 1844 to 1846 and brings together a large collection of textiles, cocoons, local products and many reports on Chinese weaving techniques. The first house to settle there is that of Paul Desgrand. Trade between Lyon and China is developing considerably, benefiting in particular from the establishment of foreign concessions in China, the establishment of a direct maritime line between Marseille and Shanghai.and the creation of a warrant structure.

In the 1850s, the Cévennes farms were severely affected by several diseases: pebrine, flacherie and muscardine. Despite Pasteur’s work, production collapsed. Diseases spreading in Europe, the silk workers then obtain the raw material mainly in China, and, for the rest, in the various countries where they have investments at. The mastery of this sector by Lyon entrepreneurs is greatly facilitated by the free trade agreement between France and the United Kingdom1860. It can instead exchange Lyon silk thread to dominate their English competitors, fueling the lowest cost and selling their workshops throughout Europe.

At the end of the Second Empire, Japan became a supplier country. Opening up to the outside world during the Meiji era, from 1868, allowed the Lyonnais to gain a foothold in the country. The house of Hecht, Lilienthal & Cie obtains a quasi-monopoly position in the sector with the supply of all the equipment of the imperial army. She is paid in silk thread which she resells via her Lyon-based parent company. The importation of Jacquard mechanics into Japan from this same period onwards led to the dissemination of Lyon motifs in local production.

At the very end of the XIX century, an experiment was attempted with the Golden Orb Web Spider (also called Nephila madagascariensis, or of its Malagasy name, halabé). This spinning spider known since the beginning of the XVIII century and clean Madagascar, weaves huge canvases silk highly resistant (yellow gold) and lend themselves particularly in the manufacture of luxury clothing. Tests were carried out in Lyon in 1893 for a presentation at the Universal, International and Colonial Exhibition of 1894. Father Paul Camboué, Jesuit missionary in Madagascar, sends numerous specimens of silk to the silk condition laboratory; although keenly interested in the samples, the laboratory considers on the one hand that these are too small to be able to judge the industrial interest of spider silk, and on the other hand that the Malagasy spiders do not will probably not acclimatize to the Lyon climate.

A productive system power
Under a very tight elite, a large mass of workers populated La Fabrique, which was “under the July Monarchy, perhaps the largest European concentration of workers employed in a single industry”. This mass consists of more women than men. Unlike most other types of industries, Lyon silk remains artisanal for a long time. The first mechanical loom was not installed until 1843, and there were only 7,000 in 1875. In 1866, there were 30,000 looms in Lyon and 95,000 in the surrounding countryside.

At the beginning of the century, production was concentrated in the city, and more particularly on the hill of La Croix-Rousse, then an independent municipality and which therefore had the advantage of being exempt from the grant, until it was attached to Lyon in 1851. Then, the Factory dispersed the places of manufacture in Lyonnais, Beaujolais, going as far as Dauphiné, in Bugey and Savoie. It was at the beginning of the century that the term “ canut ” was born to designate the Lyon silk weaver.

As in previous centuries, production is carried out by independent craftsmen, paid by the piece and whose relations with the contractors are regularly strained. Two major conflicts will affect the productive system in the XIX century:

In 1831, the first Canuts Revolt broke out the demand for a minimum manufacturing tariff, first negotiated and then refused by the manufacturers. From November 21 to December 2, a violent movement took place which saw the insurgents take control of the Croix-Rousse and Presqu’ile districts. The canuts restore order in the city, they administer it, and withdraw upon the arrival of the army led by Marshal Soult, Minister of War
In 1833-34 the question of the tariff again provokes movements of general strike. The ringleaders were arrested but their trial sparked new riots (April 9 to 15, 1834) which were repressed (300 dead, many injured and 500 arrests).

All in all, and according to historian Pierre Léon, these revolts did not significantly disturb general prosperity and enabled the weavers to see their standard of living gradually improve.

Under the Second Empire, the industrial tribunal, by the will of the chamber of commerce, began to collect collections of fabric samples. These are all designed to ensure each property of a pattern that feed the ideas of designers and manufacturers. Contrary to what happened in the previous century, designers specialize in a purely artistic role and director. Innovations no longer come from them, but from workers or manufacturers. Often hired young, as employed, by silk houses, they are trained there and innovate little artistically before.

With the adoption, under the Second Empire, of the fashion of the plain, the silky houses have less need of designers, and no longer hire. In 1870, those who remain aged, and no longer train anyone. This prepares the crisis of renewal of the beginning of the Third Republic before.

Opportunities
The merchant-manufacturers fully control the outlets for production, the foremen never selling the fabrics they produce. The circuits of silk evolved greatly over the century. Before 1815, most of it was distributed on the continent, in all the courts of Europe. Subsequently, the sharp rise in customs barriers deported sales to the United Kingdom and the United States. Around the 1870s, these two states absorbed 70 to 80% of Lyon’s silk purchases.

Over the entire century, 80% of production was exported from France. The traders open branches as far as Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires. This commercial success sounded the death knell for other national production centers (Avignon, Tours, Nîmes), which were withering one after the other. Likewise, European competition (Krefeld or Elberfeld in Prussia, Zurich, Spitafield in London or Manchester) is fading in front of the power of the Lyonnaise Factory, to no longer be satisfied with only the crumbs of the world silk market., especially low-end products, abandoned by the people of Lyon. While the Fabrique massively exports its products to the United States, the start of the Civil War immediately brought one in three businesses to a halt. Fortunately, the signing of a free trade treaty between France and England in 1860 immediately opened up many new outlets.

Traders and commissioners renew sales strategies: they generalize the practice of samples, organize renewal rates, product differentiation, and ensure the best training for designers. They are supported by an efficient production force, responding to the model of the dispersed manufacture. From an order, the work is distributed in a complex way during multiple negotiations between workshops, trades, journeymen, apprentices, according to the nuances of the product.

To regulate and guide this work, the Lyon factory relies on three components: transactions, institutions and the city. Thus, from the 18th century, an innovation policy was set up at city level. Then, following the Revolution, the Le Chapelier law prohibiting relations of subordination, was set up by successive experiments, a kind of factory code to govern tariffs, loan regimes, debt., or access to the profession, by regulation of democratic inspiration. The factory was distinguished in this from Jacobinism and economic liberalism. These principles will materialize with the creation of the reformed arts and crafts tribunal (1790-1791), labor courts (1806-1807) and mutual insurance companies (Devoir Mutuel in 1828).

Gradually, the final clientele evolves. In addition to the traditional elites, the highest strata of the European and American bourgeoisie are added. The rapidly growing purchasing power of this part of the population allows it to afford the mid-range products offered by Lyon silks (plain, mixed silk), silk remaining a powerful social marker.

The great houses of the Lyon silk
The great names of the Lyon silk are the XIX century Arles Dufour (merchant silks and banker), Baboin (specializing in tulle silk), Bellon and Couty (manufacturers whose company, became Jaubert and Audras, was the most important in Lyon at the end of the Second Empire), Bonnet (specializing in black plains and promoter of boarding schools, becoming the company Richard & Cottin), Dognin and Isaac (manufacturers of tulle from silk), Falsan, Gindre (manufacturer of satins and taffetas), Giraud, Girodon, Gourd, Big Brothers (later taken over by Tassinari & Chatel in 1870), Guerin (merchant banker and silk, heir of a family dating back to the XVII century),

The Mire, currently known as Prelle, Martin (manufacturer of velvet and plush), Monterrad (fabricators), Montessuy & chomer (manufacturers of silk crepe), Payen, Pignatel (silk merchant), Riboud, Black Test. Alongside them are dyeing houses such as Gillet (specialist in black tints), Guinons (largest dyer in Lyon) and Renard (founder of fuchsine); but also the families of spinners. In 1866, there were 122 silk merchants, 354 merchant-manufacturers, 84 dyers, and a multitude of small businesses working around the silky industry (card readers, comb makers, shuttle makers, degreasers, dressers, etc.).

The world of silk entrepreneurs steadily widens with the expansion of activity, to double during the first fifty years of the century. Subsequently, the number of silks stagnated, around 350 to 400 merchant-manufacturers. This means that on average, everyone’s wealth increases. At the same time, a certain concentration takes place, placing in the hands of an elite most of the means of production. In 1855, the thirteen main companies supplied 43% of the silk woven in the Lyon region. This proportion rose to 57% in 1867.

These most powerful houses had the funds to invest in mechanical machines, standardizing the products produced. They are often the ones who integrate into their midst a large number of ancillary companies: manufacturer of embossing machines, finishing machines, dyeing workshop (with the first chemical dyes), etc.. The study of inheritance confirms this picture, showing that trading of the world melts gradually in the industry, and that cross-investments allow the elite to see her grow assets significantly. This world of silk workers is geographically very concentrated, mainly at the bottom of the slopes of Croix-Rousse, in the Tolozan and Croix-Paquet areas.

Most of the large houses in Lyon were created by neophytes in XIX century but some families were working from the old regime in the manufacture and trade of silk, like the family whose grandfather Payen, Jean-François Payen Orville (1728-1804), was silk merchant in Lyon and Paris, or Baboin family that already holds XVIII century a manufacturing business and silk trade in the Drôme and Lyons.

Other houses created in the XIX century are a result of structures that already exist in Lyon before the Revolution, including Belmont and Terret house in 1814, sees the brothers Belmont succeed their father Jean-Charles Terret, significant silk manufacturer in Lyon at the end of the XVIII century.

Economic success of the silk sector
During the first two thirds of the XIX century, silk production has the wealth of the Rhone city, with annual growth rates of 4%, while the French average is 1.5%. The value of foreign sales was 60 million francs in 1832, and increased considerably to stand at 454 million francs in 1860. This rise is, as in past centuries, very discontinuous, with periods of press and dead seasons; however, it was not really affected by the two canuts’ revolts. Angleraud and Pellissier even believe that the French Revolution, despite the destruction, was“Than a simple twist in the long growth of the Fabrique Lyonnaise”.

The Industrial Revolution hardly penetrated the Factory, which remained an economy with a high labor cost, easily supported by the high value of the finished product. Thus the number of trades rose from 18,000 in 1815 to 37,000 around 1830 and 105,000 in 1876. The prefect of the Rhône, in 1837, gave the following development: in 1789 16 to 17,000 trades, under l empire 12,000, from 1824 to 1825 27,000 and in 1833 40,000. This growth obliges contractors to install them no longer in the city, which is saturated, but in the suburbs and surrounding countryside. The economic successes of this sector allow the silk workers to gradually emerge from poverty and, for the most qualified among them, to achieve a certain ease. The turning point in this development took place during the Second Empire, the height of the Fabrique prosperity.

Silk matrix Lyon chemistry
The Factory is a booming sector, which brings with it other parts of Lyon’s economy and scientific activity. Chemistry thus takes full advantage. The preparation of silk and its dyeing requires great mastery of many chemicals. Until the Revolution, the colors were obtained with natural products. In the 19th, there was a real upheaval, in which Lyon chemists, driven by the needs of a powerful textile industry, were fully involved.

At the beginning of XIX century, the majority of these substances are derived from the sulfuric acid, which explains the presence in Lyon many manufacturers of “vitriol”. Before the appearance of artificial dyes, silk must go through mordanting to be dyed. The only effective vat dye is then indigo, the others must be preceded by a mordant. The Lyon dyers thus tried large numbers of them (gallic acid, alum, green vitriol, rouil, iron pyrolignite, verdate, tin foam, etc.). In 1856, an English chemist, William Henry Perkin, discovered the purple ofaniline, called mauveine in Lyon. “Not only was this dye easy to apply, without biting, but it gave the silks a particular shine, impossible to obtain with natural dyes”.

This novelty sparked a keen interest in chemistry in Lyon, particularly within the vocational education of the Martinière high school, from which the chemists specializing in dyes, such as Nicolas Guinon, Étienne Marnas or Emmanuel Verguin, have come. The latter synthesized in 1858 fuchsin, another dye of aniline, more solid than mauveine.

The evolution of style and Trade of the Lyon silk
The style of La Fabrique Lyonnaise has as its primary characteristic floral inspiration, often from a naturalistic perspective. Another typical side is the desire to highlight technical prowess. Throughout the century, the largest silk companies presented the best of their know-how during the “Exhibitions of French Industry Products”, then during the Universal Exhibitions when they replaced the first ones in 1851. They did so. make parts at the cutting edge of their technical capabilities for these occasions; that allow them to make prestigious orders. The products presented are representative of changes in their style or their customers.

The style of Lyon silk under the Restoration: intaglio
During the Restoration period, one fabric was very successful: intaglio damask, participating in the development of the Restoration style. “Designed to give the illusion of a burin engraving, these fabrics require more than any other an in-depth knowledge of mechanics and the resources it can offer”. The manufacture of this fabric is made possible by the technical improvements made by Étienne Maisiat and E. Moulin to the Jacquard loom, the first by installing a rod system to make almost invisible cutouts and bindings and the second by inventing carding producing the illusion of intaglio. The main house using this technique is the Chuard company, with which it obtains numerous awards. The Cordelier house also weaves damask in intaglio.

Under the July Monarchy: the fashion of the East and the rise of liturgical silk
During the period of the July monarchy, the silk sector, in addition to its traditional outlets (clothing and furnishings in Europe), saw the development of two distinct areas: the paramentics in France and sales to the Orient. The rise of the Catholic faith and the obligation, after difficult decades for the parishes to reconstitute the liturgical cloakrooms, provide an important clientele for the manufacture of dalmatic, chasuble, pluvial, conopée or canopy. Among the manufacturers involved in this sector, there is the Lemire house. Already leading the XVIII century, trade with the East takes a big swing at the time, including the production of home Prelle.

Under Napoleon III: the fashion of neo-gothic and united states
During the middle of the XIX century, neo-gothic current spreads throughout society, affecting all forms of arts and crafts. Neo-Gothic motifs appear in pattern books around the 1835s, reaching a peak from the Second Empire. They are intended, in addition to the Catholic liturgy, whose peak demand is between 1855 and 1867, for furnishings and the dress. The houses Lemire and Prelle produce large quantities of fabrics using these patterns. Prelle in particular obtains drawings from Viollet-le-duc, Reverend Arthur Martin and Father Franz Bock.

The first is inspired by medieval iconography for its sketches but without copying existing fabrics. Arthur Martin designs for Prelle patterns resulting from mixtures of medieval and more modern styles. The latter, compiler of several studies on ecclesiastical clothing from the Middle Ages, provides the Lyon manufacturer with exact copies of fabrics that he collected and analyzed. Other houses followed, such as Tassinari & Chatel from 1866. These fashions only concern part of the production, the essential remaining faithful to the outstanding features of the Factory,.

Another trend is also emerging, driven by the tastes of the court, and in particular those of the Empress Eugenie. Abandoning the patterns, she seeks united fabrics whose attractions are provided by the material and the colors. The manufacturers then offered “falsely united fabrics, shiny taffeta, with shiny faults, satins, moires, gray, blue, burgundy “. Modern moire was invented in Lyon by Tignat in 1843. The patterns, however, always have the imperial favor, if they are tone on tone. To compensate for this lack of design, manufacturers also use lace. Their prestigious designs, however, still find a clientele for, for example, shawls or ball gowns. In the 1860s, the Fabrique Lyonnaise thus turned with its plain colors to a more modest clientele. Using easily mechanized techniques, manufacturers vary weaves and dyes to provide diversity.

Alongside the reorientation of part of its production towards simple fabrics, Lyon silk is seeking to keep its place in furnishings and clothing intended for the elite. To do this, they compete with technical feats widely put forward during exhibitions, such as the door designed in 1867 by the house Lamy & Giraud and composed by the designer Pierre-Adrien Chabal-Dussurgey, which requires for its weaving 91,606 boxes. During the Second Empire, the Fabrique Lyonnaise enjoyed unprecedented prestige during the first universal exhibitions.

At the premiere, held in London in 1851, The Lyon exhibition demonstrated the undeniable supremacy of high novelty and great luxury, like the Mathevon & Bouvard house, or the James, Bianchi & Duseigneur house. She exhibited silk scarves and shawls from the Grillat Ainé house, and the famous woven silk portraits of Carquillat ”. After London, the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1855 further established the domination of the sector by the Fabrique Lyonnaise. The most admired house of this session is Schulz frères, who in 1853 made the wedding mantle of Empress Eugenie and in 1856 that of Empress of Brazil Thérèse-Christine de Bourbon-Siciles.

The Third Republic: decline and conversion
With the advent of the Third Republic begins the decline of the Lyonnaise Factory. The main causes are the public’s disaffection with worked silks and the rise of new competition. Despite numerous attempts to adapt and seek solutions, the sector collapsed with the crisis of the 1930s.

The 1880s: First decline
The boom years lasted until 1875-1876, then the trend turned sharply. At the turn of the 1880s, the years of crisis followed one another. The silk industry in Lyon was first hit by the general contraction of the French and European economy. But this cyclical event only partially explains the difficulties in the sector. Added to this is the fact that fashion is definitely renouncing pure and shaped silks, turning to mixed fabrics, pancakes, gauzes, muslins, etc. The rise of fabrics where silk is mixed with other materials (cotton, wool) is definitive,. Other fabrics of even lower quality are required thanks to their even lower price, such as tussor silk made with the Asian Tussah silkworm or schappe.

At the same time, competition is becoming tougher, in a context of customs protectionism. Textile industries across Europe, often more recent, are adapting very quickly to market demands. Lyon must cede first place in the world silk market to Milan. Even American, Japanese and Chinese silks compete with Lyon. This difficulty in dealing with this globalization is found in the supply networks. If the crisis of the 1850s was overcome, it was thanks to investments in Italy and the Levant. But the Lyonnais are not very present in Asia, the few attempts including the Pila initiative are exceptions.

Many silk houses closed their doors during this decade. From the 1890s, the survivors struggled to respond to this new situation.

The turning of the Belle Epoque: attempt to adapt
Reactive, Lyon silks were able to respond to the crisis during the Belle Epoque by adapting heavily. Some houses were even created in these years, such as, in 1905, the S. Blanc Company, F. Fontvieille & Cie, then specialized in the manufacture of silk fabrics for corsets and which, then, will take off by diversifying, knowing strong expansion. The most dynamic houses thus produce new fabrics, engage in mechanization and weave other materials. The First World War suddenly brought almost all production to a halt.

New fabrics
Many manufacturers turn resolutely towards new fabrics and find a predominant place in the world trade in precious materials until the 1930s. These fabrics are either silk threads mixed with other materials (wool, cotton) or silks. of lesser qualities. Manufacturers therefore do not hesitate to use the methods of their competitors to deprive them of any competitive advantage.

At the same time, part of the Factory is turning to fully synthetic materials. Several silky manufacturers thus founded in 1904 the “Lyonnaise Company of Artificial Silk”; even if many are those within the Factory not to turn resolutely towards this thread considered less noble. The commercial successes of the Lyon textile industry until the 1920s were largely due to rayon and fibranne. In fact, houses using only natural silk recorded a significant decline; while the Lyon textile industry in general manages to maintain itself.

Mechanization
Industrialists begin an intense mechanization of their production tools. The number of mechanical looms thus increased from 5,000 in 1871 to 25,000 in 1894 and 42,500 in 1914. Pure silk being fragile, it is not suitable for heavy mechanization. But the rise of blended son or lesser qualities up the problem and there are many great silky to turn to these looms to reduce costs, such as home Bonnet. This boom does not mean the immediate disappearance of hand looms, but their number is rapidly decreasing.

Before World War I, however, mechanization only affected low and medium quality silks, and not rich silks and even less shaped ones. The fragility of the finest fibers and the difficulties in preparing a Jacquard loom in order to reproduce complex patterns did not make their production on mechanical looms profitable at that time. Hand looms were 115,000 in 1873, another 56,000 in 1900 and more than 17,300 in 1914. Overall, the rise of mechanical looms made it possible to increase the production capacity of the Factory, which increased by 25% between 1877 and 1914.

This development mainly affects intramural looms. Lyonnais hand looms are thus not replaced on site, but in the neighboring regions, especially in Isère, towards Voiron, Tour-du-Pin or Bourgoin. Some companies even close their orders to the Lyon trades to create spinning mills abroad. Thus, the Payen house opens and enlarges several times spinning factories in Italy. S. Blanc, F. Fontvieille & Cie has a spinning mill in England. Likewise, the Guérin house invested in Italy, before buying in 1900 the Mont-Liban spinning mills in Palluat, Testenoire et Cie.

Procurement
The most enterprising silky industrialists surpassed the traditional habits of the Fabrique and vigorously ventured into the import of raw materials (raw or already worked) directly from Asia. In fact, the Far Eastern spinning mills made significant progress, both qualitative and quantitative. The means of communication and transport are much more efficient, as are the international trade systems, making direct purchases without intermediaries more reliable. Houses like Permezel did not hesitate to proceed in this way, as did Veuve Guérin et fils, who invested in spinning mills in the Middle East by buying the factories of Palluat-Testenoire.

To learn more about Chinese silk, in imitation of the Lagrénée mission of 1844, a second expedition was organized at the invitation of Frédéric Haas, French consul in Hankou. This time, the Lyon Chamber of Commerce sends Ulysse Pila as organizer and deputy commissioner. Delegates from other cities and other industrial sectors are invited, reaching a total of thirteen expedition members. Leaving Marseille in September 1895 and arriving in Saigon a month later, they traveled all over Chinafor two years. On their return, they publish a book and numerous technical reports, which will be widely used by the silk producers of Lyon.

The search for a better supply of silk thread prompted the chamber of commerce to create in 1885 the “Laboratory for the study of silk”. The goal is to get to know the mulberry bombyx better to guarantee the best quality yarn. This institute carries out research on the life of the animal and the characteristics of its silk. The results of the work are used for the mechanization of milling and weaving. This laboratory also broadens its field of study to all sericogenic species, constituting a large collection of animals. The laboratory is located on the second floor of the Condition des silks. Coupled with the laboratory, a serum museum is set up to contain the collections of specimens collected by the institution and provided by silk traders, other museums, consular agents or private individuals. Quickly, from 1890, the museum opened to the public and to educational institutions. It also presents its collections throughout France during events, such as the universal exhibitions.

Specialization
Finally, other houses are trying to overcome the crisis by tightening their activities around a core of customers and a product. Thus, the company Tassinari et Chatel devoted itself from the beginning of the crisis until the 1910s to paramentics and upholstery fabrics. After 1910, the policy of specialization continued with the abandonment of religious textiles.

Other companies specialize in high-end clothing, by opening counters in Paris as close as possible to the elites and the great couturiers who dictate changes in fashion. Thus, the Atuyer-Bianchini-Férier house is located near the Garnier opera house and hires prestigious artists to imagine its patterns, including Raoul Dufy from 1912 to 1928.

The change of range
A majority of manufacturers under the Third Republic are resolutely turning to the cheap silk market. Indeed, the fashioned with classical floral motifs find fewer and fewer customers and are in decline around 1900. It was during this period that Art Nouveau motifs appeared, following the general trend of fashion.

Accompanying the emergence of fashion for “Petite Nouveautà ©” in the Belle Epoque, which saw manufacturers take up the patterns and themes of the High Novelty in simplified configurations and lower quality materials, many silks are resolutely committed to this a niche previously abandoned to foreign manufacturers. The house most emblematic of this commercial strategy is that headed by Léon Permezel, who succeeds by many technical means in recovering silk waste and less noble materials to mass produce.

Other initiatives
More symbolically, in 1886, the Lyon City Council created a brand with the city’s arms allowing buyers to recognize a fabric woven in Lyon. In the same years, and despite reluctance in the professional world, the town hall opened a weaving school to help the Fabrique have a pool of qualified weavers.

In 1872, the chamber of commerce opened a business school, the École supérieure de commerce de Lyon, to improve the efficiency of the Fabrique’s sales representatives. Welcoming the school of Mulhouse which left the city after the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine by the German Empire, it draws inspiration from foreign institutions and quickly integrates a weaving course.

The ordeal of the Great War
During the First World War, the Factory suffered terribly. The luxury market is paralyzed, European customers inaccessible and the successful Russian Empire market is disappearing. At the other end of the chain, imports of raw silk, whether from Italy or Asia, have stopped. In addition, a large part of the workers and employers are mobilized. The activity slows down suddenly in 1914. It resumed timidly in 1915, at a very low level only to rise slowly during the war. The supply of silk is also restarting, and the concern for the houses becomes the lack of manpower.

The blocking of the important imports of German chemicals and the mobilization of the means of production for other activities by the army pose serious problems to the dyers. The means implemented to produce despite everything are the extension of lead times, the use of replacement products and the reduction of the range of colors offered to the customer.

Unlike other industries that may participate in the war effort by retraining, the silk industry does not have this option. It therefore does not directly benefit from the 1914-1918 war. However, one effect of the conflict is the obligation for manufacturers who manage to find an outlet to turn to artificial silk or other fibers, thus continuing the development of production that began before the conflict. Another consequence of the war is the opening for French houses of markets traditionally acquired from German manufacturers. The Netherlands and the Scandinavian countriesthus open to Lyon silks. Others, where the Lyonnais commissionaires were in competition with the Germans, become easier to prospect: United States, Brazil, Argentina, Spain.

The start of the 1920s and the collapse with the Great Depression
After the difficulties due to the First World War, the Factory is recovering vigorously. The modernization of the productive apparatus with the massive switch to mechanization and the air demand provided by the status of Paris as world capital of fashion allow this. Developments initiated before the war, silks will make a new model, successful during the 1920s, but insufficient to survive the Great Depression. This revealed the remaining weaknesses within the Fabrique, and sounded the death knell for the Lyon silk industry.

The 1920s: small novelty and great luxury, the new model of the Fabrique
During the 1920s, the Fabrique Lyonnaise experienced significant commercial growth thanks to extensive mechanization, the outlets of haute couture and the rise of ready-to-wear. This period also saw the commercial circuits change completely to turn resolutely towards the new American world power. Among the houses which were very successful at this time, there was Bianchini-Férier, Ducharne or Coudurier-Fructus.

Mechanization and rationalization
During the 1920s, the Factory changed era by definitively renouncing hand looms at. For many major houses, this time is that of a renewal of the generation of leaders and the new ones do not hesitate to embark on the path of mechanization. Whether they are moving towards luxury or more accessible products, these firms are industrializing. Traditional weavers, owners of two or three looms and working for a merchant-manufacturer, disappeared en masse at this time.

There were still 17,300 hand-held looms in 1914, but only 5,400 in 1924, according to a definitive trend. For many companies, this industrialization is accompanied by a rationalization of production, by integrating as many stages of production as possible in the same plant. The Dognin house and the Grandsons de Cl.-J. Bonnet are representative of this policy. As a rule, houses already engaged in this process or those which follow vigorously then experience success allowing them to invest in major factory openings or expansions. In the same movement, many houses are engaged in the weaving of artificial fibers, mainly viscose.

Mass produce: the small new
By modernizing, silks are then in phase with the prosperity of the Roaring Twenties. They follow the craze of the urban middle classes in search of fashionable clothing at a price. The circuits set up are based on haute couture models, which are simplified and made with less expensive materials. The couturiers thus sell not only unique and luxurious clothes, but also the models intended for customers wishing to copy the elites.“In America, mainly in New York, the models sold are adapted to be produced in series. To each of them is attached a “reference sheet”, given by the seller and which contains information facilitating their repetition: quality of the fabric, necessary yardage or names of suppliers “.

Follow Parisian fashion: the Lyon silk and global luxury
The silk workers of Lyon also benefit from the status of Paris as the world capital of fashion, which allows them to be at the forefront of creativity. The majority of houses closely follow Parisian haute couture trends, which dictate changes in fashion. Thus creating high-novelty fabrics, they regain a dominant place in the global luxury market. The proliferation of haute couture houses at this time enabled most of Lyon’s houses to find buyers. The clientele of haute couture houses, which is becoming increasingly American, is made up of very wealthy individuals for a small part and professional buyers for the majority. If the former are highly sought after for their ability to ensure the reputation of a collection, the latter are for the volume of fabric they require. To have a team of designers capable of following Parisian fashion as closely as possible, the Fabrique created a school directly in Paris, the Dubost school.

Among the houses emerging at this time, we can cite the Soieries Ducharne, created in 1920 in Lyon and Neuville-sur-Saône, which quickly moved towards manufacturing for French haute couture.

The luxury sector remains fragile, however. Indeed, the taste of the elites is changing and moving towards less luxurious clothing during the day. Women, especially, are abandoning the sophisticated dresses for their daily activities, reserved for evening outings. This restricts the demand for the most valuable silks.

The factory in the 1929 crisis
Most of the big silky houses in Lyon have remained on a fairly elitist mode of operation, and do not take advantage of the reduction in costs made possible by the arrival of artificial fibers to lower their selling prices and target a modest clientele. They only use it at the margin, to give particular aspects or new qualities to natural silk. Thus, in 1927, if the Lyon metropolitan area produced more than a third of French artificial fiber, its own fabrics did not contain more than 10%, many houses still refusing to include it in their products.

When the 1929 crisis hit the United States, Lyon silk, which exports massively for the American elites, is feeling the shock. With the order books then full, the Factory still experienced acceptable activity until 1932, but the managers saw a crisis approaching which left them without a fallback solution. Indeed, the prosperity of the 1920s led to the proliferation of new small houses offering silk fabrics of medium to poor quality. These flood the market which, when the crisis hits, is saturated for several years, forcing many players to sell at a loss. Moreover, they will not invest in less expensive materials (cotton, wool) deprives them of an alternative at a time when silk not find taker.

The shock is very violent. Between 1928 and 1934, the value of silk production collapsed by 76%. Over these eight years, fifty houses disappeared, their number rising from 119 to 69. Important and secular societies collapsed, such as Guérins, Payen or Ulysse Pila. In terms of value, during the same period, the city’s silk outlets rose from 5,150 MF to 1,200 MF. Exports, vital for the survival of Lyon’s industry, are also disappearing. In value, from 3,769 MF in 1928, they fell to 546 MF in 1936. In volume, they only decreased by half, which clearly shows a sharp drop in sales prices.

To survive, many companies abandon silk altogether, turning entirely to artificial fibers. Even if this fiber is much less profitable, its low price still makes it possible to find a market. Thus, if the share of silk in Lyon’s exports fell by 83% in just five years, between 1929 and 1934, that of rayon increased by 91%. This brutal and definitive reconversion sounded the death knell for silk in Lyon. In 1937, rayon represented 90% of the raw materials used by Lyon textile companies. To survive, many companies are turning to the domestic market, especially colonial, as small as it is. For the first time, the Fabrique does not find a unit within it to take measures capable of overcoming the new crisis. The different regulatory solutions proposed fail one after the other, without it being possible to say whether they would have provided an answer.

The lowest point was reached in 1936, but the timid recovery of 1937 and 1938 was only a short stagnation before the new shock of World War II.

From World War II to XXI century end of the factory and commercial mutations
The reconversion of the majority of manufacturers in the rayon industry in the 1930s was only an illusory solution and this sector in turn collapsed during the Trente Glorieuses. Despite efforts to organize and support the sector through advisory and mutual aid structures, natural silk is, for its part, confined to a luxury market. Lyon, on the other hand, is developing know-how in the field of conservation, restoration and heritage enhancement of silk.

The Second World War
The entry of France into the Second World War dealt a severe blow to the Lyon silk industry. Imports of raw silk are stopped, exports made almost impossible. They did not resume until 1946, making the use of rayon essential to continue producing. As for the artificial silk industry, it is for its supply in competition in the controlled economy of Vichy with other national industries. The attempts of the Vichy administration to modernize the production of textiles in Lyon produced little effect. They are hampered by local resistance, competition between structures and the difficulties inherent in the period.

The import and export of silk were virtually stopped in 1945; they only resume with difficulty in the following years. The constraints of the administration and the disorganization of the sector prevent any significant resumption of production before 1948. In addition, for the first years after the war, there were difficulties in the supply of additional raw materials (mainly dye products).).

The end of a dominant industry
The second half of the XX century saw the traditional structure of the Lyon factory disintegrate and disappear, despite numerous attempts to survive. The structures intended to reinvigorate it failed to stem the collapse of sales and staff. During this period, the Fabrique disappeared as an economic force structuring the Lyon region. The few surviving houses are positioned on the elitist niches of luxury, haute couture and the restoration of old fabrics.

The decline of the textile Lyon
The adoption of artificial silk, rayon, during the shock of 1929 by the silk workers of Lyon is only a temporary remedy for the crisis. Indeed, this fiber is in strong competition with the appearance of nylon in the 1950s. However, this new material requires much heavier investments, which most textile houses cannot afford. At the same time, efforts to modernize production tools are woefully insufficient, with manufacturing times and volumes remaining lower than most other world textile production areas. La Fabrique cannot turn to the production of low-cost ready-to-wear lines.

This leads to a new wave of disappearance. Between 1964 and 1974, the number of houses fell by 55% and that of factories by 49%. The smallest houses were the first to disappear, but some institutions also went bankrupt, such as the Gindre house in 1954 or the Dognin house in 1975. The workforce in the textile industry is literally melting. In 14 years, between 1974 and 1988, the employees of the sector of the Lyon region went from 43,000 to 18,000. The number of looms fell from 23,000 in 1974 to 15,000 in 1981 and 5,750 in 1993.

Sector Organization
To resist the decline, several Lyon houses have joined forces to pool investments and better disseminate contacts and ideas. This “Group of High Novelty Creators”, born in 1955, includes eight companies including Brochier, Blanc Fontvieille & Cie or Bianchini-Férier. This institution has had several successes and enabled several houses to withstand crises in the sector. The silk sector subsequently relied on several other organizations which helped it to survive and develop, including Unitex in 1974 (Lyon association for advice to textile companies), Inter-Soie France in 1991 (association bringing together Lyon silk players and organizing the Lyon silk market) or the international silk association.

Reorientation of the Lyon silky industry
The usual outlets escape the Fabrique, luxury using almost no more silk and competition on the prices of ordinary items becoming untenable. The last Lyon silk companies are therefore reorienting themselves towards technical textiles, catering and heritage activities.

The end of the traditional customers of the silk
The traditional clientele of the Fabrique that are the elites, ready to spend fortunes in evening and ceremonial clothing and in the fitting out of their homes, is in crisis in the thirties and tends to disappear in the fifties. with the social transformations experienced by developed countries. The wave of democratization and the influence of American culture dealt a final blow to the orders of rich silk garments. Parisian fashion, a natural outlet and standard-bearer for Lyonnais productions around the world, is in severe crisis, with many haute couture houses closing and the rest only surviving thanks to their ready-to-wear lines.

In the furnishing fabric niche, there is still the Tassinari & Chatel house, taken over by the fabric publisher Lelièvre, which mainly works for the luxury hotel industry, the States or very wealthy individuals and the Maison Velours Blafo, new name, from 1990, of Blanc Fontvieille & Cie, French leader, for forty years, in the manufacture of technical velvets and specialized in the market of flat, plain and Jacquard fabrics.

High fashion turns silk
These houses are increasingly turning to other materials. The volumes of silk ordered become low; from 1957, the textile industry in the Lyon metropolitan area used only 800 tonnes of silk against more than 24,000 tonnes of artificial fibers. In 1992, the production of silk fabric fell to 375 tons. Some houses try to specialize in luxury goods; they are experiencing many difficulties.

The old Bonnet house chose this reorientation in the 1970s by separating from factories producing mid-range fabrics and by buying companies with quality know-how. In the 1990s, it produced luxury items (clothing and scarves) under its own brands or for houses such as Dior, Chanel, Gianfranco Ferré or Calvin Klein. The leaders also try to exploit the historical dimension of the company by founding a museum. But it remains fragile and died in 2001.

The companies Bianchini-Férier and Bucol, which also work for haute couture, manage to survive. Bucol (a company founded in 1928) has managed to survive by devoting itself solely to high novelty thanks to a solid network within Parisian haute couture. It thus joined forces with Hubert de Givenchy in 1985 for the production of “simple or fashioned crepe, sculpted or satin-striped muslin, multicolored flowers thrown in seedlings or in large prints, coordinated with one another or harmonized with polka dots, stripes or geometric patterns ”. The same house joined forces with several contemporary artists in the 1980s for the creation of woven paintings.Yaacov Agam, Pierre Alechinsky, Paul Delvaux, Jean Dewasne, Hans Hartung, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Roberto Matta took part. Acquired by the Hermès group, the Bucol house produced its printed silk squares for it. She also manufactures for Dior, Balmain or Chanel.

Restoration and conservation of heritage
Very early on, the Lyon authorities sought to establish motives deposits. Originally, this business had a utilitarian purpose, to allow recognition of property, support the training of future designers and provide inspiration to homes. During the XIX century, this project takes a purely historical heritage and leadership within the Textile Museum. This now hosts collections from Lyon’s long silky history. Thus, the samples and drawings kept by the industrial tribunal were transferred to the museum in 1974 when the judicial body moved.

The museum of fabrics has a workshop for the restoration of old fabrics in 1985, partly financed by the direction of the museums of France. Built on the model of that of the Abegg foundation in Riggisberg, it works in the restoration of public or private rooms. It is also the headquarters of the International Center for the Study of Ancient Textiles, founded in 1954 and which brings together more than 500 members from 34 countries.

The Tassinari & Chatel and Prelle manufactures maintain the know-how of upholstery silk for the restoration of period pieces. In the 1960s and 1970s, they benefited from the State’s desire to carry out a vast restoration plan for the furnishings of the royal castles. This restoration work is backed up by archaeological research carried out by specialists from the two houses to find the colors, weavings and patterns identical to the original. This first project opened the doors to other catering companies abroad. Thus, the German government entrusted them with the restoration of several castles including those of Brühlor from Nymphenburg.

Technical textiles
A number of companies are leaving the world of silk to survive, entering the market for high added value technical textiles. In 1987, the four main companies in the Lyon region in this sector were Porcher, Brochier, Hexel-Genin and DMC. This strategy has met with some success. For example, the production of fiberglass fabrics increased from 13,500 tons in 1981 to 30,000 in 1988.