Called “tela de lenguas” in Spanish and “roba de llengües” in Catalan – it’s made using the ikat technique, in which the threads are dyed before being placed on the loom. The Southeast Asian ikat was all the rage in 18th-century European fashion, and may have come to Mallorca from France, where it was particularly popular, soon afterwards. Fabrics are fragile, though, and there aren’t many old fragments, meaning it’s difficult to trace connections. And there’s no shortage of, well, old yarns.
“Nobody really knows how the design got to Mallorca,” explains Cati Vicens of Teixits Vicens, the Pollença family-run factory which still makes the pattern today in the traditional way. Whatever the case, when the design reached the islands, it adapted to its new Mediterranean home and the Mediterranean character, and the sky-blue colour became the favourite.”
Cati comes from a long line of weavers. Her father was the late Martí Vicens Alemany, who revitalised the family business in the years after the war and who died in 1995. Martí had found his father’s notebooks with drawings in them and he used these to reinvent the pattern. And he didn’t just stick to traditional designs. “He was tremendously creative and he came up with all sorts of new designs and patterns.”
The first stage in the production process entails stretching the undyed cotton threads – or warp – on a frame. The next step is to sketch out on the threads the intended design. The threads are then removed from the frame and those parts to be left white are covered with water-repellent bindings or they might merely be bound very tightly. Bundles of white cotton threads are then dipped into vats and, according to the pattern desired, are selectively dyed – so that only those parts of the cotton that are unprotected will take on colour. The threads are then taken to weaving workshops, wound back onto spools and woven into cloth. It’s a laborious process and the result is a cloth which is patterned on both sides, into which linen is woven to give the finished cloth greater body.
Ironically, the roba de llengües industry is now coming under threat from the very region which gave the world the technique in the first place. “The biggest challenge is to keep going, to stay alive, in the face of such stiff competition from the Far East. We try very hard to maintain the Mallorcan character of the fabrics. Our main goal is to offer a fresh, quality product, that stands out from the crowd and that’s of the highest quality.”
This doen’t mean that the Vicens family remain totally tied to tradition, though. “It’s important that we change with the times and don’t stay stuck in the past. Our customers appreciate our efforts and give us a tremendous amount of support.”
