#HTE

How They Printed Wallpaper and Textiles in 1960s Britain

Wallpaper is essentially clothing for your walls, which is why I consider it crazy to use it. Clothes go out of fashion, and nothing makes a home look more dated than wallpaper with a pattern that was clearly designed decades ago.

What’s even crazier is how labor-intensive it used to be to create wallpaper, even well into the 20th Century. Take a look at this video showing wallpaper production in Great Britain, shot in 1968:

I love the old look of the silver router the woman in the beginning uses, freehand no less, even as I cringe to see she lacks both eye and respiratory protection, and of course there is no dust collection. I guess I should be more amazed that there were professional power-tool-wielding women in the ‘60s at all, as I’d assumed that the sexism of the time would have precluded her from that role. Anyways check out the crazy Fred-Flintstone-looking wishbone handle in the photo below, which looks like it drives the screw that clamps the base to the router:

What the video didn’t show is where some of those patterns came from. For that we go back to 1957, where this thief with a camera is stealing them from the greatest artist that ever lived:

It’s cool to see how these things were made, but gosh—is there anything more hideous than old textile patterns?