The emergence of bed linen

The his­to­ry of the pro­duc­tion of bed linen is lit­er­al­ly filled with a huge num­ber of curi­ous facts. So, archae­ol­o­gists have found that the ancient Egyp­tians already used linen bed­ding. Today, under­wear is often made from silk, which first appeared in Chi­na — and the secret of its pro­duc­tion has long been kept in the strictest con­fi­dence. It was even believed that the first silk threads were obtained with the help of the god­dess.

In ancient Rome, woven sheets were used, the pat­terns on which were sup­posed to increase love pow­er, and the knights of the Mid­dle Ages pre­sent­ed their ladies with bed­spreads made from the skins of rare ani­mals. But bed linen in the form in which we are used to see­ing it today appeared only in the 15th cen­tu­ry. Of course, then such acces­sories could be avail­able exclu­sive­ly to the upper class — they were dis­tin­guished by lux­u­ry and cer­tain­ly empha­sized well-being. The favorite of the French king, the Mar­quise de Pom­padour, intro­duced the fash­ion for dec­o­rat­ing bed linen not only with chic, but also with friv­o­lous plots.

Pre­vi­ous­ly, it was cus­tom­ary to thor­ough­ly stock up on bed­ding sets — future brides began to pre­pare such a dowry almost from child­hood. Mag­nif­i­cent copies were inher­it­ed and with “age” became only more expen­sive. The whole­sale pro­duc­tion of tex­tiles did not begin until after the Sec­ond World War. Of course, bud­get and prac­ti­cal fab­rics, such as cal­i­co and chintz, have already been used here. Del­i­cate to the touch and at the same time — sim­ple and durable — such fab­rics have allowed mil­lions of peo­ple around the world to pur­chase com­plete bed­ding sets, includ­ing pil­low­cas­es, sheets, and duvet cov­ers.

In the mod­ern world, it is dif­fi­cult to imag­ine a bed with­out bed linen. Today, tex­tiles are no longer a lux­u­ry, but a nat­ur­al need and an invari­able attribute of our bed­rooms. More­over, the most famous design­ers and artists are involved in the pro­duc­tion of bed­ding sets, thanks to which the fab­rics are dec­o­rat­ed with mag­nif­i­cent embroi­deries, pat­terns and prints. Of course, the col­ors used have become much more. The assort­ment has also expand­ed in terms of size range — now you don’t have to hem pil­low­cas­es, don’t try to fit a large blan­ket into a small duvet cov­er. As for fab­rics, the choice is not lim­it­ed here — you can choose from prac­ti­cal cot­ton to lux­u­ri­ous silk.